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Suggested reading on distance learning As the campus comes to grips with the PricewaterhouseCoopers proposal for distance learning in the UMass system, faculty members would do well to take a look at "Dancing with the Devil," a 128-page paperback published in 1999 by Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. This volume, consisting of six chapters written by people with different experience and perspectives on on-line education, provides a reasonably balanced overview of the application of information technologies. Of particular relevance is the chapter by Gregory Farrington, president of Lehigh University, "The New Technologies and the Future of Residential Undergraduate Education." The overall message of all the authors is to recognize that online technology is a tool that needs to be applied very strategically, in an environment where its effectiveness as a tool is continually assessed and where the quality of the teaching and learning experiences takes priority. JOSEPH S. LARSON Bottom line driving distance learning plans Before my eyes is a forbidden text: the PricewaterhouseCoopers "Strategic Business Plan for Professional and Distance Education." The President's Office paid $300,000 for this ream of jargon and pie-charts, but they don't want us to see it. I can understand why. The pie-charts show pie-in-the-sky, millions of dollars of revenue beckoning out of the clouds. Legions of citizens anxious to finish college with the click of a mouse. Learned professions foregoing their traditional training for one gigantic download. Corporations unable to continue in business without purchasing "the brand value of a UMass professional or distance education program." But to eat properly of this rich pie we must first go hungry. "UMass can only succeed if it is willing to invest financial and political capital to develop an effective go-to-market strategy." This means adding all sorts of administrators, but no faculty, of course. In fact words like "student" and "faculty" are all but absent from the PricewaterhouseCoopers lexicon, which is peopled instead with chimeras like "Content Aggregators." Rights for courses created by faculty - at a rate of $5,000 each! -- will revert to the University, so they can hire cheap adjuncts (or androids) to teach them the second time around. But once this curriculum is put into place, the thing will run itself and mint buckets of money: machines credentialing machines 24 hours a day. No more deferred maintenance: let it all fall down. No more grouchy professors, no more beer-swilling sophomores. We can take our wetware and go home. DAVID LENSON |
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