Thomas Huelsmann THuelsmann@faculty.umuc.edu

(Developed by Thomas Huelsmann of Germany.) A study of the economics of distance education in the larger context of the economics of education. A variety of methodological approaches (including cost/benefit and cost/effectiveness analysis) are applied to the distance education context. A variety of costing techniques and economic models are explored and applied to different institutional forms and levels of distance education.

The goal of the course is to enable the student to be a competent partner in the process of setting up and managing economic aspects of distance education, both on institutional level as well as on course level (i.e. with regard to media choice).

At the end of the course students should have achieved the following objectives. The student

1. reviews the expansion of education and the soaring costs of educational provision.
2. understands the conceptual framework of 'Human Capital Theory', the core theory of economics of education.
3. identifies the cost drivers in distance education systems and is able to measure them.
4. understands the role of overheads and the problem of cost attribution.
5. is able to treat capital costs including the annualization of costs.
6. handles the basic cost model and is able to analyze scale economies.
7. analyzes and compares the cost structure of media and handles a cost model for rapid cost appraisal of a selected media configuration.
8. applies the costing methodology to net based learning and identifies the cost-drivers specific to net based learning.
9. discusses the impact of net based learning on the cost-structure of distance education..
10. analyzes the costs of online student support.

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Preparation

When the pre-week opens go to the respective module (Pre-Week) and read the instructions.  ake sure that you take note of all the relevant course dates.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

This course is only offered in the online mode. Students must be prepared to:

• ensure technical to access Webtycho
• ensure the availability of Excel
• invest an average12.5 hour workload in each of the twelve weeks of the course.

The 150 hours workload during the course consists of:

• 50 hours of reading,
• 50 hours of active, visible participation in the discussion groups,
• 50 hours for assignments.

Classroom Management

Participation is graded. The grade is meant to show appreciation for the active participants who contribute actively to the course content. However, we want to accommodate a broad range of styles of participation including a more vicarious/observant style of participations. All participants should reflect on their style of participation and, if necessary, adjust it. 

It goes without saying that flaming is  not wanted. Lack of participation in the group assignment may lead to your exclusion from the group. 

Preferred Contact Method

Please use the following email for contacting me:
thomas.huelsmann@uni-oldenburg.de

Every Monday (unless announced differently) between 8am and 10am EST I will be available for synchronous communication (either using Skype or Google Hangouts). My skype name is thomhue.

Supplemental Materials

Supplementary reading material will be suggeste as we go. It will be made available electronically.

GRADING

To the final grade of this course both, assignments, and participation to the conferences will contribute:

• Online participation contributes 10 % to the final grade.
• You are requested to keep a learning journal to be posted at the end of the course. It will contribute with 15% to the final grade. 
• The first assignment must be submitted by the end of week 2. It contributes 25 % to the final grade.
• The second assignment must be submitted by the end of week 5. It contributes 25 % to the final grade.
• The third assignment consists of a graded group assignment. It contributes 25 % to the final grade.

Academic Policies and Guidelines

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

As a member of the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) academic community that honors integrity and respect for others you are expected to maintain a high level of personal integrity in your academic work at all times.  Your work should be original and must not be reused in other courses.

CLASSROOM CIVILITY

Students are expected to work together cooperatively, and treat fellow students and faculty with respect, showing professionalism and courtesy in all interactions.  Please review the Code of Civility for more guidance on interacting in UMUC classrooms: https://www.umuc.edu/students/support/studentlife/conduct/code.cfm.

POLICIES AND PROCEDURES

UMUC is committed to ensuring that all individuals are treated equally according to Policy 040.30 Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity, and Sexual Harassment. 

Students with disabilities who need accommodations in a course are encouraged to contact the Office of Accessibility Services (OAS) at accessibilityservices@umuc.edu, or call 800-888-UMUC (8682) or 240-684-2287.

The following academic policies and procedures apply to this course and your studies at UMUC.

GRADING

According to UMUC’s grading policy, the following marks are used:

* The grade of "B" represents the benchmark for The Graduate School. Students must maintain a Grade Point Average (GPA) of 3.0 or higher. Classes where final grade of C or F places a student on Academic Probation must be repeated.
** The Graduate School does not award the grade of D.

COURSE EVALUATION SURVEY

UMUC values its students' feedback. You will be asked to complete an online evaluation toward the end of the term. The primary purpose of this evaluation process is to assess the effectiveness of classroom instruction in order to provide the best learning experience possible and make continuous improvements to every class. Responses are kept confidential. Please take full advantage of this opportunity to provide your feedback.

LIBRARY SUPPORT

Extensive library resources and services are available online, 24 hours a day, seven days a week at https://www.umuc.edu/library/index.cfm to support you in your studies.  The UMUC Library provides research assistance in creating search strategies, selecting relevant databases, and evaluating and citing resources in a variety of formats via its Ask a Librarian service at https://www.umuc.edu/library/libask/index.cfm.

LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM SUPPORT

To successfully navigate the online classroom new students are encouraged to view the Classroom Walkthrough under Help in the upper right menu of the LEO classroom.  Those requiring technical assistance can access Help@UMUC Support directly in LEO under the Help menu.  Additional technical support is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week via self-help and live chat at https://www.umuc.edu/help or by phone toll-free at 888-360-UMUC (8682).

SYLLABUS CHANGES

All items on this syllabus are subject to change at the discretion of the Instructor and the Office of Academic Affairs.

COURSE OUTLINE

Module 1 Distance Education & the Economics of Education

During the first week a number of issues will have to be addressed: Students will be introduce each other and will be given an outline of the course setup. 

However, we proceed soon to the course content. What is the rationale behind the unprecedented expansion of education since about 60 years? Education can be seen as an investment with very real returns to the individual as well as to society as a whole. Individual demand rises and there seems little reason to discourage it. But trying to satisfy a mass demand for education, giving the scarcity of resources, leads to the question of the most cost-effective provision of education. Distance education seems to fit this bill. Using rational production techniques, including division of labor and the application of media and technologies, distance education may be seen as being capable of emulating the success of industrialized manufacture of high quality consumer goods.

This relation between the core theory of economics of education which suggests to view education as an investment (Human Capital Theory), the historically unprecedented worldwide postwar expansion of education, and the emergence of distance education sets the scene for the questions of this course. 
In the thirdweek students will be asked to do some group work. Students will collaborate to explore the expansion of education using the an online database of educational statistics. While this group work is not graded, participation is strongly recommended since it will allow students to become acquainted with the use of Excel spreadsheets required in the first assignment and the modalities of working together as a group.

Management issues and objectives:

• Students and faculty introduce themselves to each other.
• Students are introduced to the Economics of Distance Education course.
• Students engage in a role debate on whether education lives up to its promises ('Education: Elixir or Snake Oil?').
• Students are introduced to the main tenets of the economics of education (e.g. Human Capital Theory).
• Students understand the principle concepts & methods of assessing returns to educational investment.
• Students identify the expectations connected with distance education in the context of increased demand for education and soaring costs.

Required reading:  

Wolf, A. (2002). Elixir or snake oil? Can education really deliver growth? In A. Wolf (Ed.), Does education matter? Myths about education and economic growth (pp. 13- 55). London : Penguin books.

Module 2: The Techniques of Cost Analysis

Module 2 introduces the basic concepts and techniques of costing. We start with a view of distance education as a system and by identifying its major components. We then define the main classes of resources required in each component. Each resource must be costed. A number of cost categories are defined and applied. This finally leads to a model which allows us to study the behavior of costs when changing the volume of activities. 
Special emphasis is given to the issues like capital costs, overheads and cost attribution of joint products.

Objectives:

1. Students analyze distance education as a system and identify the main subsystems.
2. Students classify resources (including human resources, premises, equipment and stocks)
3. Students classify costs into the main cost categories (fixed and variable costs, capital and recurrent costs, opportunity costs).
4. Students handle the basic cost model to explore the effects of the different cost categories on average cost per student.
5. Students describe and apply different options for treating capital costs

Required readings:

Rumble, G. (1997). The costs and economics of open and distance learning . London : Kogan Page. 

For this module read chapters 1-9, i.e. Budgets (pp. 7-12), The classification of resources (pp. 13-20), A basic framework for analysing revenue costs (pp. 21-31), Volume and its relationship with fixed and variable costs (32-41), The treatment of capital costs (42-50). Largely additional are the following chapters: Overheads (pp.51-64), Attribution of costs (pp. 65-73) The activity of costing (pp. 74-77)

Module 3: The Cost-effectiveness of Distance Education Institutions

This module applies cost analysis to distance education institutions. Using 'cost per student' and 'cost per graduate' as an proxy indicator for cost-effectiveness we will examine the method of analyzing institutional cost-effectiveness. We review case study evidence for the claim of distance education being a cost-effective means of educational provision.

Management guidelines to monitor the cost-effectiveness of distance education are suggested.

Objectives

1. Students summarize the methodology of cost-effectiveness analysis of distance education systems.
2. Students identify the most important indicators of measuring institutional effectiveness (cost per student and cost per graduate).
3. Students identify the different steps in cost analysis of distance education institutions
4. Students identify different institutional forms of distance education. In particular: dedicated mode, dual- and mixed-mode, networks and consortia.
5. Students examine the implications of these modes on the cost structures of the respective institutions.

Required readings:

Rumble, G. (1997). The costs and economics of open and distance learning. London : Kogan Page. 
Chapters 13-14 

Conference with with Professor Dr. Greville Rumble as visiting expert (to be confirmed)

With the visiting expert there are three broad topics to explore: (i) remaining questions on efficiency and cost-effectiveness and other specific issues you may come across in studying the textbook; (ii) 'the vulnerability debate'; while reading the respective chapters keep in mind the issue on the dependency of cost-efficiency on scale economies and the impact ICT induced market fragmentation may have on scale economies; (iii) ethical dimensions of the economics of distance education. 
 

Required readings:

Rumble, G. (2007). Social justice, economics and distance education. Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning, 22 (2), 167 -176.

Module 4: The cost structure of mass media

The classification of DE according to ‘generations of technologies’ is misleading since new technologies generally not fully displace but rather that the frontier of educational technology is shifting. These shifts can be best understood given a firm grasp of the backdrop against which such shifts take place. This is why this module takes a close look at the cost structure of mass media based distance education.    

Objectives

1. Students review ‘generations of educational technologies’. They understand that new generations of educational technologies do not necessarily displace previous generations but that they merely indicate a shift in the ‘technology frontier’.
2. Students classify educational technologies with respect to their communication capabilities (one-way or two-way communication; cf. Holmberg’s ‘two constitutive elements of DE’ and Hülsmann’s distinction between resource media and media of communication).
3. Students understand the problem of comparing the costs of media (cost per learning hour).
4. Students review frameworks to assess the effectiveness of media configurations for learning, such as Bates 
           - ACTION model
           - Laurillard’s conversational framework
5. Students understand that effective configurations of educational technologies / media require both one way and two way media.
6. Students understand the trade-off between lack of ‘responsive interaction at a distance’(RIP) and the potential of scale economies in case of overly reliance on one-way media (mass media).
7. Students discuss the ‘theory of media equivalence’.

 Required readings: Chapters 1-6

 - Bates, A. W. (2005). Technology, e-learning and distance education. London New York : Routledge.

Module 5: Costing e-learning

The emergence of digital technologies led to a convergence of educational technologies. This shifts the problem away from ‘selecting technologies’ (Bates) to identifying appropriate educational scenarios. Conventional Learning Management Systems (LMS) can be used for to deliver content or to sustain interaction. 

Recently renaming the MDE as Master of Distance Education and E-learning reflects the fact that DE competencies are increasingly valued in contexts outside the traditional distance education and online institutions. This is due to the ubiquity of the ICT infrastructure affording a variety of flexible educational scenarios independent of the overall institutional profile. Hence ICT-supported flexible learning is increasingly relevant also for universities and colleges traditionally relying on f2f teaching. It takes the form of e-learning and blended learning.

Objectives

1. Students understand the meaning of convergence of educational technologies and understand the shift away from ‘selection of technologies’ (Bates) to identification of appropriate educational scenarios.
2. Students re-visit the distinction between one-way and two-way communication media in the context of digital technologies; they understand the distinction between type-i and type-c scenarios.
3. They understand the different cost-structures associated with the different scenarios.
4. Students analyze typical problems in blended learning contexts.

Required readings:

Bates, A. W. (2005). Technology, e-learning and distance education . London New York : Routledge. Chapters 7-10 are required. 

Module 6: Costs and economics of learner support

Throughout the course the tensions between 'following the efficiency path' and upholding quality became more and more visible. We have seen that relentlessly cutting costs on course development and, especially, student support may fire back in terms of quality and cost-effectiveness. This module puts together an economic argument for supporting students in order to increase retention.

Objectives

1. Students are aware of the traditional remit of distance education to expand access to education for non-traditional learners.
2. Students understand the possible trade-offs between efficiency and cost-effectiveness or, more general, quality.
3. Students understand the relation bettween student support and retention.
4. Students understand the relation bettween retention and cost-effectiveness.
5. Students are able to work out an economic argument in favor of student support

Required readings: 

Simpson, O. (2008). Cost-benefit of student retention policies and practices. In W. J. Bramble, Panda, S. (Ed.), Economics of distance and online learning: Theory. practice, and research (pp. 162-178). New York , London : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group