From the issue dated May 19, 2000

2 Models for Collaboration in Distance Education Western Governors U. is behind projections while Southern effort exceeds expectations By DAN CARNEVALE Salt Lake City As more colleges consider collaborations as a way to move quickly into distance education, two notable models are Western Governors University and the Southern Regional Education Board's Electronic Campus. Both span huge ALSO SEE: Colloquy: Join a debate on issues raised in this article geographic regions, but their approaches and records diverge. Western Governors, which started amid a barrage of hype in 1998, promised to revolutionize higher education by offering degrees -- based on a new, competency-based testing system -- that would compete with those offered by existing colleges. Today, Western Governors, with about 200 degree-seeking students, has failed to meet any of its enrollment targets and lacks accreditation. The Southern regional board's effort, in contrast, was created quietly, also in 1998, and still hasn't received the kind of public attention showered on W.G.U. Its "campus" hasn't attempted to reshape academe or to compete with anyone, but rather, to give students easy access to online courses offered by participating colleges. That approach appears to be working: More than 20,000 students are taking online courses through S.R.E.B. member institutions. States and colleges seem to be picking up on S.R.E.B.'s approach. Many of the new collaborations being announced these days are decentralized, leaving control over academics to individual colleges. "We're not trying to strong-arm anyone," says Bruce Chaloux, director of the S.R.E.B.'s Electronic Campus. "We think we've got a model that, over its first two years, has proven to be an effective one." As colleges and universities band together in unprecedented numbers to create and distribute courses that are taught from a distance, they're discovering that such collaborations can present obstacles as well as benefits. Winning accreditation, providing student services, setting tuition, figuring out finances, and transferring course credits are among the thorny issues that administrators find themselves struggling to face collectively -- sometimes with politicians looking over their shoulders. In part, the obstacles arise because distance education is new for most of the institutions and partnerships, and they're essentially making up the models as they go. Many distance-education providers are looking to learn from Western Governors and the Southern effort, two of the most prominent collaborations. And even as those two partnerships are working to attract more students, no one in distance education can forget that a third ambitious plan, for a California Virtual University, came to grief before it had done much more than put up a Web site. As it happens, Western Governors and the Southern board's effort are at opposite ends of the partnership spectrum. W.G.U. is organized as something akin to a freestanding university, one originally intended to bring together under a single academic banner courses created at a variety of member institutions. Meanwhile, the S.R.E.B. effort is a loose collective that started out providing members little more than a common Web site on which to publicize online offerings. As other institutions contemplate creating new partnerships, the S.R.E.B.'s comparatively simple model appears to be the more widely adopted -- and to present fewer problems. W.G.U.'s approach, more revolutionary and less certain of success, has attracted many onlookers but few imitators. One of the most-cited reasons for such collaborations is that they create successful marketing tools. The more partnerships an institution joins, the more Web sites its courses are listed on, and the more students will be able to find out about those courses. But institutions that have joined both partnerships have learned that, marketing possibilities aside, operating on such a large scale isn't always a benefit. Finding that students at one university have services that other instiutions don't provide makes it difficult to decide what services the collaboration should develop. Still, the appeal of collaborating is strong. Economies of scale among larger groups lower costs. Institutions can take advantage of creative ideas developed at neighboring institutions. And colleges can share services and courses, instead of reinventing the wheel. W.G.U. is a virtual institution that offers courses created by about 40 colleges and universities from 22 states reaching as far east as Virginia, plus one institution in Canada and another in Guam. Students enroll in the courses through the Western Governors Web site, collect W.G.U. credits by passing W.G.U. assessment tests, and, finally, earn W.G.U. degrees. The institution offers 950 courses and five degrees and is adding more, even though its "campus" -- leased office space in a building in Salt Lake City -- doesn't accommodate a single student. "We're emphasizing that this is a different model," says Alec M. Testa, W.G.U.'s director of assessment. About 200 students have enrolled in W.G.U. degree programs so far, although about 150 more students have signed up for individual classes. When first conceived, Western Governors anticipated 500 degree-seeking students by the year 2000. Also, the institution advertised that it would have 3,000 students participating in certificate programs and 7,000 in corporate training programs by now. Neither of those programs has been developed yet, and officials say they want to get accreditation out of the way before concentrating on expanding their offerings. In contrast, officials in charge of the Southern Regional Education Board decided against creating a new university when they set up the Electronic Campus. Instead, the Electronic Campus became a directory of online courses offered by institutions in the 16 S.R.E.B. member states. It now lists more than 3,200 courses -- it began with 40 -- and 102 degree programs through 262 institutions. Students earn course credits and degrees from those institutions. About 20,000 students took online courses through institutions in the S.R.E.B. partnership during the 1998-99 academic year. How many used the Electronic Campus Web site to find those courses? Nobody knows for sure. Students register for courses through individual institutions' sites. One reason such collaborations have become increasingly acceptable in higher education is that today's students care less than their predecessors did about school spirit and attending one university, says Robert W. Mendenhall, president of Western Governors University. He's noticed that students are likely to attend more than one institution before graduating and put less emphasis on the notion of having a "home" campus. What they do still care about, however, is accreditation -- which is a particular problem for W.G.U., because its member institutions are spread across states covered by four different regional accrediting agencies. Courses are accredited through the institutions that have created them, but degrees offered in W.G.U.'s name are not. W.G.U. is seeking accreditation, but so far its case is still being reviewed by a special Inter-Regional Accrediting Committee created by the four regional organizations. The accrediting committee plans to announce late this month whether W.G.U. will be granted candidacy status -- the first step toward accreditation. If so, W.G.U. could receive accreditation in a couple of years, after students actually begin graduating from the institution. Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, a Republican who was an early proponent of Western Governors, says he expects its enrollment to climb soon after accreditation is established. "From my standpoint, nothing moves fast enough," he says. "This has taken longer than I'd thought." Although Governor Leavitt was among those who predicted a larger turnout of students than has so far materialized, he says the numbers aren't as important as getting accreditation and establishing the unusual competency-based program envisioned for W.G.U. The competency-based model is designed for the working adult who already has a mixture of college and work experience and doesn't have time to go back to school. The degrees are awarded after the student passes competency exams, regardless of whether the student ever completes college courses. The university notes that most students who use distance education are over 30, and says those students have created a demand for degrees that reflect experience acquired in the workplace. One challenge W.G.U.'s administrators and member institutions didn't completely anticipate when the collaboration began is that the novelty of the arrangement itself -- combined with a considerable amount of plain old hype -- generated by the governors and members of the Western Governors Association, who were pushing for the creation of the insitution -- brought such high expectations that managing them became a problem in its own right. However, Mr. Mendenhall says W.G.U.'s influence outweighs its enrollment numbers as the institution has brought more attention to online education. "We were the catalyst to drive other institutions into doing more Web-based education," he says. The S.R.E.B.'s Electronic Campus, in contrast, has been practically a stealth project, despite its 3,200-course list. The size of the Electronic Campus, indeed, is one of its strongest assets, but also one of its biggest challenges. Coordinating the activities of institutions in 16 states isn't easy, given that each state makes its decisions independently. The Electronic Campus has a policy of not setting strict rules for its member institutions. The S.R.E.B. is making a concerted effort not to be revolutionary. Its Electronic Campus is essentially a free-trade zone where states can develop their own online-course material and then share it with other states, says Mr. Chaloux, the Electronic Campus director. Its purpose is to share resources and help market the courses that its institutions create. It does, however, run a quality check on each course to make sure it is set up well and supported by adequate services. But the quality control does not involve judging the curriculum. The Electronic Campus relies on the individual institution's standards, and on the accrediting body that oversees them, to judge that. In return for such latitude, the members seem to pull together for the benefit of the region, says Mr. Chaloux, and the Electronic Campus can provide more than smaller groups. For example, S.R.E.B. officials want to establish an electronic tuition rate to promote the growth of Web-based learning. The rate would set the price for an online course above the in-state cost for the classroom version of that course, but lower than out-of-state tuition for a similar course. Under the proposed plan, however, each state is free to set its own electronic-tuition rate, giving the states flexibility -- and increasing the likelihood that they will participate. Another top concern for the Southern group is figuring out a way to transfer credits easily among member institutions. Right now, a student can sign up for online courses from a multitude of colleges and universities -- but to receive credit for the work, the student must communicate with each institution separately to find out how to transfer the course credits to the student's home institution. So far, possibilities for creating transfer mechanisms are still in the discussion stage. To meet the demand for online services in addition to online courses, the Electronic Campus announced last month a partnership with the University System of Georgia to provide a package of services for students called Ways In. The services include online admissions applications, financial aid forms, textbook sales, and career development and placement advice. Ways In will also offer online library services, called Galileo. The Electronic Campus has also created a Distance Learning Policy Laboratory, charged with figuring out -- among other things -- what students want from an online education, and how best to run a collaborative organization like theirs. Laboratory officials came up with the idea for the electronic tuition rate, and are currently studying how best to transfer credits among participating institutions. Western Governors University, by configuring itself as a single university, has avoided some of the challenges that the institutions that comprise the Electronic Campus are facing, such as the credit-transfer issue. Western Governors and the Southern board's project also follow different models financially. The Southern board's Electronic Campus gets most of its money from the member states' annual payments to its parent organization. W.G.U., on the other hand, started with $100,000 from each member state. Now it relies on corporate partnerships and donations to keep afloat. The university's tuition does not meet its expenses right now, but Mr. Mendenhall says that should change in three years, after enrollments increase. W.G.U. had to reassess its relationship with its member universities after it learned some lessons early on. For example, it tried to add a $30 fee to courses offered by the member institutions through the W.G.U. Web site. Students quickly realized that they could simply go to the individual institution's site and enroll in the course at the regular tuition price. Western Governors got rid of the $30 fee and instead developed a plan under which W.G.U. gets a cut of each student's tuition, with the rest going to the institution through which the course is offered. But even without the $30 fee, students who find courses through the W.G.U. site don't always enroll through Western Governors. Although they can't track this, W.G.U. officials believe some students are still using the main site to search for courses, and then enrolling directly with one of the member institutions. That lowers W.G.U.'s revenues. Despite such surprises, both W.G.U. and the Southern group's Electronic Campus are holding their own, unlike the California Virtual University. Created as an alternative to W.G.U., which California officials described as "a flawed idea," the California project was a darling of then-California Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican who wanted the state's institutions to create a leading site for the development of online education. Instead, it ceased most of its operations about eight months after the state government stopped supporting it. Stanley A. Chodorow, who was chief executive officer of the virtual university, blames the absence of an adequate financial structure for the collapse. Although the virtual university was pushed into existence by the former governor, he says, the state never contributed much money to it, and the member institutions and private companies weren't all that enthusiastic about contributing cash themselves. California Virtual University still has a Web site and a searchable database of courses from its more than 100 participating institutions. The University of California Board of Regents runs the site. Among newer collaborative efforts that are learning from the trials and errors of W.G.U. and the S.R.E.B. projects are those that bring together community colleges in individual states. The projects create seamless environments that allow a student from any member institution to register in courses from any of the other member institutions and still have the courses credited toward the student's degree at the home institution. Among the states with such programs are Michigan, New Jersey, Oregon, and Texas. Ron Thompson, director of operations for the Virtual College of Texas, says the loose regulations surrounding the community colleges in the Texas consortium have helped it to be successful. The Western Governors model, on the other hand, is so revolutionary that there's little wonder it hasn't met the high expectations, he says. But he adds that it's still a model that could work. "Don't count them down and out just because they had a slow start," he says. But Mr. Chodorow says Western Governors University has a tough road ahead of it because the idea of competency-based education isn't one that's going to thrive in higher education. "That's a very unpopular idea in the academic world," he says. Sally Johnstone, director of the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications, says most collaborations want to end up like the community-college systems, easing students' academic lives with extensive articulation agreements. However, most start off like the S.R.E.B. Electronic Campus, listing and marketing online courses and then trying to figure out how to handle credit transfers. "That's where a lot of them really want to head, but few of them are there," she says. But as students demand services, institutions have to act. When students see a home page on the Internet that lists online courses, Ms. Johnstone says, they expect other resources to be there, too -- from library services to counseling to easy course-credit transfers. "Students then have assumptions, and they want services," Ms. Johnstone says. "It's just evolutionary." http://chronicle.com Section: Information Technology Page: A53 Easy-to-print version E-mail this article