The new normal of digital and distance education

While universities have remained impervious to many societal changes, the new openness of digital content strikes at the core of the business of knowledge exchange. Access to elite knowledge no longer affords the same competitive advantage when the Internet places a wealth of information at our fingertips.

A global revolution is taking place in tertiary education. The traditional concept of the lecture room is being redefined as digital and distance education becomes the "new normal". Even politicians have woken up to this revolution, with last week’s announcement of a parliamentary inquiry to investigate the potential of digital learning in schools.

Meanwhile thousands of tertiary students are routinely using new digital technologies to take advantage of the anytime, anywhere convenience of distance education. In many respects digitally mediated distance learning has become the study mode of choice.

Massey University, Australasia’s highest ranked major distance education provider, has provided distance education for more 50 years. It now has more than 16,000 distance students studying throughout New Zealand along with another 1000 located in different parts of the world. Most of its distance students are studying in areas directly related to their work and live in major cities, studying online even though there are other local tertiary providers. It is a common misperception that distance education serves only people in geographically remote locations.

With its significant investment in digital learning, Massey plans to increase greatly the number of international students studying by distance. It has several initiatives under way, such as two fully online master's degrees funded by the World Bank to up-skill health professionals throughout South Asia. This initiative expands to other regions later in the year including full translation and delivery in Russian.

Massey has a clear strategy for international distance education that extends its long tradition of promoting social, cultural and economic development. Vice-Chancellor Steve Maharey has said: "What drives us is our commitment to taking what is special about New Zealand to the world".

This strategy goes beyond putting free content online, by targeting specific areas of specialism and building long-term relationships with strategic partners. Massey is being particularly careful to select high quality international partners. It recently established the Distance Education and Learning Futures Alliance to build a global network of leaders and its institutional capacity for developing new models of digital and distance education. The alliance aims to be a major force in redefining the future of teaching and learning.

The significance of the new normal of digital and distance education is likened to the transformation of the music industry, where traditional record stores disappeared in little more than a decade. And of course bookstores as we know them are now under threat due to growing sales of electronic books, and Apple has the lucrative academic textbook market in its sights with the recent launch of iBooks.

Arguably digital and distance education is the new fusion engine of the knowledge society. Tertiary institutions that understand the impending obsolescence of traditional models of teaching and the significance of first mover advantage are getting away from yesterday’s logic. The past is no longer a predictable indicator of the future. With Ivy League universities like Stanford joining the increasing number of online providers there is widespread acceptance that students no longer have to study on campus.

And today’s modern digital-era distance education provider has advanced the traditional pack and post model of distance learning – where study materials arrived through the mail and students interacted sporadically with classmates – by the fusion of new online content and new virtual learning spaces, supported by engaging new ways of teaching.

This digital fusion of teaching with technology might explain why at the university level New Zealand distance students report they are more engaged in their learning than traditional campus students.

Although the tendency in tertiary education has been to add new technologies to old ways of teaching, the growth of digital and distance education is challenging the practice of even traditional academics. The Internet is slowly redefining the role of the professor.

However, the revolution cuts much deeper as the economics of digital abundance is seriously challenging tertiary institutions. A growing number of institutions are following the lead of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, by making course content freely available online. An audacious new initiative called the Minerva Project was recently announced with funding of $US25 million to create a global online university. Minerva bills itself as the first elite American university to be launched in a century and promises to re-envision tertiary education.

Professor Mark Brown is Director of Massey University's National Centre for Teaching and Learning and an executive member of the Distance Education Association of New Zealand, which held its biannual conference in Wellington this week.