Article: E-Learning:A Financial and Strategic Perspective

E-Learning:A Financial and Strategic Perspective
By Stephen R. Ruth
EDUCAUSE Quarterly Volume 29 Number 1 2006
"Institutions can consider different options in shaping a long-term strategy for achieving acceptable financial returns from e-learning
A report sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation examined the importance of online education at more than 1,000 universities in the United States. The results, published in November 2004, seemed to indicate that two major problems that had complicated distance learning's progress for almost a decade had been solved.
First, the study found that students and administrators believe that the quality of e-learning now matches that of traditional teaching methods. According to the report,

• Three-fourths of academic leaders at public colleges and universities believe that online learning quality equals or surpasses face-to-face instruction.


• The larger the school, the more positive the belief in the quality of online learning compared to face-to-face instruction.

A second major finding was that universities provide distance learning to almost two million users, with a rate of increase of about 25 percent per year.
These results should be good news for colleges and universities. The report seemed to downplay the no significant difference criticism. Distance learning detractors had argued that it was always possible to find a small, statistically significant local example where distance learning was very successful and then extrapolate the results to a much wider population, concluding that no significant difference existed between traditionally taught and technology-enhanced courses without studying the larger population for potential differences in results. The Sloan report implies that the users and providers of distance learning no longer need to concern themselves with this criticism."
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