TOPIC 3: 

Operational Issues

 

Overview

•             Source materials for this topic

Issues in managing open and distance learning programmes

Characteristics of open and distance learning

Staffing

•             The staffing mix

•             Training staff

Integrating media

Managing project teams

•             Variables of effective teamwork

Systems thinking

Collaborating with other agencies

Centralising versus decentralising

Planning and scheduling

Costing and budgeting

Monitoring and supporting staff at a distance

Evaluating programme performance

•             Measuring

•             Comparing

•             Correcting

Practice exercise  

• Management issues  

Overview 

These materials support discussion on the topic of the operational issues that confront open and distance learning providers.

The section opens with a list of the similarities between open and distance learning programmes and their more conventional counterparts. This list is only a beginning, and could be expanded during discussion with participants about features that are common to all education programmes, regardless of mode of development or delivery.

The remainder of the materials focus on ten operational issues that are of particular concern to managers of open and distance learning programmes.

1.1 Source materials for this topic

Bates, T. Technology in open learning and distance education: a guide for decision-makers. Vancouver: The Commonwealth of Learning and the Open Learning Agency, 1991.

Moore, M., and G. Kearsley. Distance education: a systems view. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1996.

Paul, R. Open learning and open management. London: Kogan Page, 1990.

Snowden, B., and J. Daniel. The economics and management of small post-secondary distance education systems. Distance Education I: 1, [pp. 68-91] 1980.  

 2. Issues in managing open and distance learning programmes 

Managers of open and distance learning programmes face the same challenges as the managers of learning programmes delivered in more conventional, face-to-face settings:

• both aim to provide an education that is relevant and of high quality;

• both aim to offer and achieve certain minimum standards of education and training;

• both have administrative systems that enrol learners and register them on their 

• chosen courses; and

• in the case of conventional programmes, both usually,

• require learners to sit examination before receiving certification.  

 3. Characteristics of open and distance learning 

However, open and distance learning programmes and conventional programmes have several differences. Specifically, open and distance learning programmes:

• often tend to be ‘open’ programmes, concerned with improving access and with

• democratising education, 

• as contrasted with maintaining education as a privilege of the elite;

• drop or lower the academic entrance requirements that conventional programmes 

• typically require if they are also open programmes;

• have the same exit or graduation requirements as conventional programmes

• even though, because of their openness, they may accept;

• learners with fewer formal qualifications,

• which creates a situation that places even greater demands

• on those providing tuition and learner support;

• tend to deliver their courses using a mix of technologies and media; 

• they almost always include some print materials, 

• but these are supported by a variety of electronic media,

• including radio, television, audio and video cassettes, computers, and

• telecommunications;

• are typically supported by part-time tutors and counsellors who may be ;

• employed by conventional institutions;

• frequently require collaboration with other programmes and agencies

• to provide learning materials, course development and delivery personnel, facilities,

• or all of these;

• tend to need larger administrative bodies that accommodate a greater diversity ond

• functions; and

• must remain open, flexible, and innovative in response to learner needs,

• a challenge that is best met by open, flexible, and

• innovative approaches to management.

Discussion: You will likely want to add other similarities and differences to this list. You might also involve your participants in generating a list of the characteristics that are common to educational programmes in general, and then use that list as a basis for differentiating distance programmes from conventional programmes.

These differences between open and distance learning and more conventional programmes raise a number of issues for managers of open and distance learning programmes:

• staffing for open and distance learning programmes;

• integrating media;

• managing project teams;

• analysing systems (systems thinking);

• collaborating with other agencies and organisations;

• centralising versus decentralising;

• planning and scheduling;

• costing and budgeting;

• monitoring and supervising staff at a distance; and

• evaluating programme performance.

Discussion: This list is intended only as a prompt for discussion. You are welcome and urged to add other operational issues.  

 4. Staffing 

4.1 The staffing mix

The staffing mix required to implement an open and distance learning programme depends on the educational job to be done and the organisational model that has been chosen. To take an extreme example, compare the staffing needs of two completely different open and distance learning programmes.

Example: A non-formal programme of literacy work with adult villagers, supported by radio and regular study circles, will require considerably different personnel than an executive mba programme of formal study offered by a single mode, distance learning university.

Nonetheless, personnel will likely fall into the following categories.

4.1.1. Educational staff which include:

• subject specialists;

• specialists in the production of materials;

• specialists on tutoring and counselling;

• tutors, especially part-time tutors;

• broadcasting producers; and

• research workers and evaluators.  

     Example: Both of the open and distance learning programmes in the example require educational staff set out in the following table.

Staffing Needs of Two Different Open and Distance Learning Programmes

Type of staff	Literacy circle	mba programme
Subject specialist	In the teaching of reading	in management accounting
Specialists in the production of materials	In producing effective flannelgraph cut-outs and literacy primers	in producing study guides in management accounting
Specialists in tutoring and counselling	trainers of study circle facilitators	career advisors
Tutors, especially part-time tutors	study circle facilitators	tutors communicating with learners via computer conferencing
Broadcasting producers	radio programme producers	video producers for marketing the executive mba programme and recruiting volunteers

4.1.2 Materials production staff which include

• printers;

• copy editors;

• graphic designers;

• broadcasting technicians;

• typists and word processing clerks; and

• desktop publishing specialists.

4.1.3 Administrative staff which include:

• administrators and managers;

• personnel staff;

• financial staff;

• records clerks;

• secretaries and typists;

• warehousing and dispatch staff; and

• messengers, janitors, and drivers.

4.2 Training staff

Arrangements will also be necessary for the training of staff, which may be done

• on the job;

• through short courses at the institution;

• by sending learners on full-time or part-time courses; or

• by enrolling them in an appropriate course taught at a distance.

The choice of organisational model will influence the training strategy.  

Example: Within a bimodal institution, where a course writer is combining that role with teaching courses face-to-face, sensitivity is needed in arranging courses for experienced university course writers on how to write learning materials for use at a distance.  

Within a single mode institution, which contracts course writers from other, conventional institutions, the same kinds of sensitivity will be required in training, as well as even greater flexibility in timing the training sessions so that they fit in with the writers’ other commitments.

Discussion: The intent here is to emphasise the similarities and differences in the configuration of ‘teaching staff’ between conventional and distance programmes.

Seek examples from both your own and your participants’ experience.  

 5. Integrating media 

Two quite different levels of decision-making are involved in selecting and using media and technologies in open learning and in open and distance learning:  

• setting up a programme based on certain technologies; and

• making the most appropriate use of the media and technologies available.

Ideally the decisions about how the programme should be set up will be driven by the second decision, which is based on the teaching resources available at the institution. This is an interactive process. For example, if television is available, a different kind of course can be produced than if it is not.

When selecting media for your programme you can use the simple acronym, actions, to help you make your decision (Bates 1991).

The actions Model for Media Choice in Open and Distance Learning

A	Accessibility	Is the equipment your programme requires available to learners? Where will they be learning? At home? At their workplace? At a learning centre?
C	Costs	Are the costs of production, delivery, and maintenance using this technology affordable? Are the costs appropriate to the number of learners who will be enrolled?
T	Teaching ability	Does the technology convey the level of facts, attitudes, and skills your programme requires? Is it suited to the kinds of learning required?
I	Interactivity	Is the technology user friendly? Can it convey adequate and timely feedback to the learner?
O	Organisational issues	How open is your organisation to change and the introduction of new media?
N	Novelty	Is it important to your organisation to be ‘leading edge’? Is this a technology that learners will want to try?
S	Speed	How fast can your programme implement this technology? How much training do staff and learners need in order to be able to use it? Will its use enable you to revise your learning materials as quickly as you need to?

Discussion: Ask for an example of integrating media from your participants’ experience.  

 6. Managing project teams 

Much of the work of open and distance learning is carried out in teams.  

Example: The development and production of a course requires the collaboration of subject matter experts, instructional designers, editors, visual designers, and a variety of support people, including liaison librarians, printers, and so on. Likewise, the delivery of a course requires the collaboration of tutors, counsellors, librarians, registry personnel, and course materials warehousing and dispatch clerks, among others.

Managing a team places different kinds of demands on managers than does line management:  

• time, because you have specified start and finish dates;

• resources, because you need a high degree of financial accountability 

• as projects are;

• more difficult to cost and control than are routine line management functions; and

• personnel, because you tend to work with a cross-functional team

• of temporary members,

• some of whom will be in a reporting line to someone other than you.

6.1   Variables of effective teamwork

Effective teamwork depends on a number of variables.

6.1.1 Time

A good deal of time is required to establish and re-establish the common ground that is essential to effective teamwork, which is achieved through shared experience, reflection, and discussion.

6.1.2 Experience and maturity

Experience in team-building among at least some of the team members is a great asset, as is a mature approach to the challenges of interpersonal communication.

6.1.3 Knowledge

Team members ideally should possess knowledge and expertise in a variety of fields that complement and reinforce each other rather than conflict, and that when taken together yield a much more complete and rounded picture than one field alone could produce.

6.1.4 Skills

Each team member needs to have skills he or she can put to direct use in making the team effective. Communication skills in particular include:

• explaining;

• descibing;

• categorising;

• articulating;

• listening;

• checking out assumptions;

• attending to feelings;

• facilitating discussion; and

• demonstrating.

• A sense of humour is also a valuable asset.

6.1.5  Shared respect

Each team member ideally should respect and admire the competence of the other members and the knowledge and skills of their respective fields or subfields. This respect extends to an eagerness to learn about the others’ fields and to use all contributions.

6.1.6 Openness and flexibility: vital to teamwork, openness and flexibility have  

        several facets:

• making and accepting offers; saying ‘Yes, and’ more often than ‘Yes, but’ or ‘No’;

• accepting and even welcoming differences

• and recognising that diversity is strength;

• demonstrating tolerance, raising biases to conscious levels, controlling them, and

• expressing tolerance out loud;

• sharing rather than trading ideas, experiences, and skills;

• building on each others’ learning and ideas to develop something new; and

• being willing to take risks, make errors, and learn from them as natural

• and useful parts of teamwork.

6.1.7 Desire to learn, curiosity

• This variable stretches all the way from simple curiosity about how others might need to adapt our ideas in order to use them to viewing differences as exciting.

6.1.8 Commitment to process

• All team members are concerned with efficiency and getting the job done and all get frustrated by the time taken up in meetings. Nonetheless, process is part of the task, and coming to grudging agreements rather than griping ones is vital.

6.1.9 Support and encouragement

• Teamwork is exciting and difficult, and support and encouragement are needed in good times and bad, and should be expressed out loud and often.

6.1.10 Sensitivity

• Sensitivity emerges in two ways: putting others’ needs before one’s own, at least some of the time, and paying attention to the emotional content of looks, words, and silences as well as to their intellectual substance.

6.1.11 Trust

• Trust emerges as the keystone of teamwork. Without it teams fall apart. Risk is the flip side of trust, and must be accepted as part of the bargain.

6.1.12 Attention to the use of power

• No matter how right or good our ideas are, telling others what to do is not the approach of a successful team, or between the team and others with whom the team interacts.

6.1.13 Determination and energy

• Determination shines through in resistance to fatigue (headache, what headache?), in the insistence on recapturing focus when group discussion wanders too far off track, and in the continual juggling of tasks and time and other commitments in order to accommodate the needs of the group.

Discussion: Ask participants for examples from their experience of teams that worked and of teams that did not work.  

 7. Systems thinking 

Implementing an open and distance learning programme requires thinking of the various tasks and sets of tasks involved in implementing components of a system. The way in which decisions are made and tasks are carried out in any one of the components has corresponding effects for all the other components in some way.

First, let us look at the components of a typical open and distance learning system.

Various Tasks Involved in Implementing an Open and Distance Learning System  

Task	Sub-tasks
Needs analysis	Design research method Carry out research Analyse results Draw conclusions for course
Specifications	Write course specifications, including aims and objectives technologies and media of presentation technologies and media of delivery
Costs	Allocate resources required for course Produce a budget Develop costs
Staff	Specify staff skills required Identify current staff available Recruit additional staff as required Brief and train staff as required
Materials	Search for existing materials Write or adapt materials Seek additional production staff as required Draw up appropriate contracts Edit materials Pilot materials Produce materials
Assessment	Identify types of assessment required Specify assessment methods Write assessment plan Write assessment items
Support	Specify support systems Write tutor guides Create record systems Brief tutors Agree systems with collaborating agencies
Marketing	Identify market segments Produce sales and publicity materials Market the programmes Advise applicants Register learners Induct learners
Monitoring	Write monitoring plan Agree plan with staff and collaborating agencies Implement plan
Evaluation	Write evaluation plan Agree plan with stakeholders Implement evaluation Make revisions based on evaluation

This process is clearly not linear, for the following reasons:

• programme staff will be involved in several of these tasks at the same time; and

• the tasks are interdependent.

Example: Decisions about the type of media to be used will depend partly on costs and partly on instructional appropriateness.

Decisions about assessment will have to be made concurrently with materials design and development.

Doing the revisions that fall out from the evaluation will involve reworking many or all of these tasks.  

 8. Collaborating with other agencies 

Collaboration among educational institutions, agencies, and programmes is becoming increasingly the order of the day, both in industrialised and less affluent countries, for a number of reasons, among them:

• public funding for education at all levels is decreasing, 

• and governments are requiring

• institutions to work with each other and in many cases with industry

• in order to qualify for funding; and

• institutions and agencies are responding to decreasing levels of funding by seeking

• collaborative arrangements that can make scarce resources go further.

Open and distance learning programmes are far from the only ones affected by these pressures. Nonetheless, open and distance learning programmes are among the foremost seekers and implementers of collaborative arrangements, because of the nature of their work and for various other reasons:

• Learning materials development represents a major cost to distance programmes. Producers of such materials can share costs through co-development arrangements, or recoup costs by sales and leases of materials. Low-resource programmes can save on staffing and other recurrent costs by purchasing materials rather than developing their own.

• Learners are seeking flexibility, especially the ability to apply credits taken in one

• programme to the completion of requirements for another. 

• Credit transfer arrangements place great demands on institutional rrangements.

• The technologies used in delivering distance programmes are forcing 

• collaboration, partly because

• delivery agencies need to share costs, and partly because of the nature of the

• technologies themselves, which increasingly make distinctions between ‘distance’ 

• and ‘conventional’ programmes irrelevant and meaningless.

     Examples: Collaborative arrangements in open and distance learning are many and varied. Here are only a few examples. 

     A number of international organisations have been created to foster course sharing and other kinds of collaboration among their members, including The Commonwealth of Learning, ciffad (Consortium d’institutions francophones de formation a distance), and the cread (Consorcio-red de educacion a distancia).

     The Open Learning Agency in British Columbia, Canada, collaborates in course sharing arrangements with a number of institutions, including Laurentian University and Athabasca University in Canada and the Open Learning Institute in Hong Kong.  

     Some postgraduate degrees in open and distance learning have been the results of collaboration, for example between Deakin University and the University of South Australia, and between the University of London Institute of Education, the International Extension College, Deakin University, and the Open Learning Agency.  

     The Contact North network in northern Ontario, Canada, makes delivery facilities available for a number of institutions to offer secondary and tertiary level programmes to widely scattered populations.

 

For managers of open and distance learning programmes, this increasing collaboration means a need for the following kinds of skills and knowledge:

• a heightened awareness of and sensitivity to differences in institutional cultures;

• skills in building effective trust relationships; and

• the ability to define, perceive, and monitor mutual benefits

• in collaborative arrangements.

In many ways these are skills similar to the skills team members need. Thus managers of open and distance learning programmes need skills not only in managing teams but also in being part of them on a wider scale. Ross Paul in his book, Open Learning and Open Management (1990) gives the following advice to programme managers who are involved in collaborative projects:

• ensure that clear benefits from the collaboration are established 

• and understood by all partners;

• ensure that clear and specific objectives and measures of achievement are stated;

• remain open to re-negotiation if necessary;

• keep the number of partners involved to the fewest possible

• to make the collaborative venture successful;

• delegate clear authority and responsibility to specific partners and individuals;

• take seriously the need to understand differences in corporate cultures;

• scrutinise the collaborative venture on a regular basis and disband if it is no longer

• meeting its objectives; 

• and  ensure that agreements have the full support of the executive officers

• of all the partner institutions.  

 9. Centralising versus decentralising

In many open and distance learning programmes the delivery of learning materials and support to learners is provided through a series of regional learning centres. Regional networks of this kind afford a number advantages:

• they provide localised, personalised service to learners;

• they strengthen the local identity of the programme or institution;

• they can be an important marketing tool;

• they can reduce turnaround time in the return of feedback to

• learners on assignments;

• they can provide enhanced support to learners via laboratories, library resources,

• computing facilities, and audio and video conferencing;

• they provide sites for regular meetings and tutorials; and

• they provide the programme with direct feedback on its performance.

Such networks also raise issues for managers: how much responsibility and which sets of tasks and functions should be delegated or decentralised to these regional centres?

9.1 Establishing a regional network

Ross Paul recommends the following steps to managers in establishing a regional network:

• clearly define jurisdictions and responsibilities;

• make policy directives and reporting lines clear;

• give regional staff some leeway in decision making, so they can respond

• to local needs;

• understand the pressures for and advantages of face-to-face service;

• value criticisms and complaints from learners and from regional staff;

• develop appropriate skills in regional staff, including a recognition that;

• they will have to

• perform a variety of tasks and fulfil a number of functions; and

• provide staff development and training for both regional and central staff,

• l measure.  

 10. Planning and scheduling 

To some extent the kinds of planning and scheduling that managers of open and distance learning programmes find themselves involved in are similar to those involved in ‘systems thinking’ as discussed earlier.

A preliminary planning and scheduling activity, however, particularly affects the launch of open and distance learning programmes. In this planning phase it is necessary to examine the broad goals the programme is to meet, the educational activities that flow from them, and organisational ways of meeting them, as well as finance, staffing, and the phasing of development.  

Goals and purpose: Research and stakeholder analysis is required to determine the

educational needs that are to be met and the characteristics of potential learners.  

Educational activities: On the basis of a needs analysis, preliminary decisions can be

made about the kind of courses to be offered; the teaching methods to be adopted; and

the way learning materials are to be developed.  

Organisation: The organisational structure needs to take account of existing structures

into which the programme will be fitted and the teaching methods the programme will use;

the extent to which the new programme should be centralised; the development of any

regional structure; and the way in which the programme will relate to other programmes

and educational institutions. Operational systems will need to be designed for producing,

storing, and distributing learning materials and for enrolling and supporting learners.  

Finance: Planners must determine the sources of funding and the balance betweenthem;

a detailed budget for the first two or three years and an outline budget for the first five; and

the system that will be used for financial management and control.  

Staffing: Decisions about purpose and structure lead on to decisions about staffing,

beginning with the job description and terms of service of the programme head.  

Phasing: A key component is the timetable of activities to launch the new institution,

setting out the stages from the completion of work of any planning group until learners are

enrolled, and ideally extending to the point that the programme has reached a steady

state.

As a general rule it is most useful if this planning is carried out by a planning committee that consists of people who combine enough expert knowledge and prestige to enable the committee to both develop a workable plan and push it forward.  

 11.Costing and budgeting 

As a starting point in determining costs and budget for an open and distance learning programme, consider the following:  

• the purpose of the programme;

• the anticipated numbers of learners to be enrolled; and

• the numbers of courses to be developed.  

These numbers will give some idea of the scale of resources needed. It is then helpful to distinguish between: 

• fixed costs, including capital and administrative staff costs; and

• variable costs, which will vary with the number of learners and courses.

An open and distance learning programme’s fixed costs are likely to be capital expenditures, including, where they do not already exist,

• buildings;

• furniture, fittings, and office equipment;

• computers and peripherals for management and course production;

• printing facilities;

• broadcasting studio, equipment, and transmitters; and

• vehicles.

Recurrent expenditures will be primarily salaries. They will be determined by the extent to which the programme needs

• its own staff or can share or contract staff from other programmes;

• full-time field workers; and

• its own broadcasting or other media specialists.

Some variable costs will vary with the number of courses, including

• salaries for consultants and outside writers;

• broadcasting production and transmission costs; and

• preparation costs for learning materials, including editing and graphic design.

Other variable costs will vary with the number of learners, including

• cost of tutorial staff and associated costs for tutorials and marking;

• cost of travel;

• cost of producing learning materials such as costs of paper, audio and

• video cassettes, and so on;

• cost of distributing materials to learners;

• warehousing costs for storage of materials; and

• administrative costs for processing learner enrolments and servicing learners 

• as they work through their courses.

A question planners and managers of open and distance learning programmes inevitably are asked is, ‘How do the costs of an open and distance learning programme compare with those of a conventional programme?’ The answer is not straightforward, for a number of reasons:

We seldom have matched groups of learners studying at a distance and studying

conventionally. For example, if distance programmes are also open programmes, learners

may be less qualified upon entrance than those in conventional programmes.

• The structure of open and distance learning courses may differ from the structure

• of conventional programmes. For example, credit structures may differ.

• The media and teaching methods of open and distance learning programmes differ 

• Open and distance learning programmes may provide intangible social benefits

• such as increased access to education, and lowered opportunity costs for learners

• in terms of time taken up by study, but they may also involve social costs 

• not included in a programme budget,

• such as the cost of radio transmissions provided by

• the national broadcasting system.

• Open and distance learning programmes tend to have;

• high fixed costs and relatively low variable costs, which makes the cost

• per learner low when learner numbers are large.

• The cost per successful learner may be high, however, 

• since open and distance learning programmes tend to have lower completion rates

• than conventional programmes.  

 12. Monitoring and supporting staff at a distance 

The management of open and distance learning programmes will almost always involve monitoring and supporting staff who are at a distance from central office. These staff may include regional centre staff, tutors, and learning materials producers such as writers of print materials and scripts for media production.  

It has become somewhat of a truism in open and distance learning that learners in open and distance learning programmes need continuing contact with the programme and support from programme personnel as they undertake and work through their studies.

Staff at a distance need the same kind of support and contact, especially since they are frequently working under conditions such as the following:

• they tend to be part-time, with major affiliation and commitment

• to some other institution;

• they tend to be on short-term or annual contracts;

• they likely have no regular face-to-face contact with supervisors and colleagues;

• their roles are frequently diffuse and ill-defined.

Too often the adage, ‘Out of sight, out of mind’, means not just isolation but invisibility for distant staff when it comes to decisions on policies and procedures, which tend to be made without due attention to their particular circumstances and needs.

Because of the distance factor, it is even more important with distant staff to practise effective staff relations, by means of:

• clear role descriptions, expectations, and reporting lines;

• a thorough induction into the programme, its history, goals, policies,

• and procedures;

• frequent and effective two-way communication

• (e-mail is an excellent medium for this where available);

• opportunities for face-to-face meetings;

• frequent performance monitoring and review;

• accurate and efficient records systems;

• continual updating on changes in policies and procedures; and

• opportunities for input into decisions that affect their work.  

 13. Evaluating programme performance 

The three steps of evaluating can be labelled

1. measuring;

2. comparing; and

3. correcting.

Each presents special problems in an open and distance learning programme.

13.1 Measuring

Measuring the learning activity of learners is complicated by distance. Even determining such apparently straightforward indicators as rates of learner progress or drop-out is surprisingly difficult to do on a continuous basis, especially in programmes that enrol learners throughout the year.

Only in the vital areas of academic quality is measurement in a distance programme easier than in a conventional programme, for the team approach to course development and services delivery both encourages quality and ensures a wide awareness of any shortcomings.

It is rather ironic that, although the team approach gives distance courses more quality — and usually quantity — than their conventional counterparts, the notion that distance study is substandard dies hard in traditional circles.

13.2 Comparing

Comparing the performance of distance programmes with conventional programmes is also problematic. In the area of economic performance, standards borrowed from conventional education should be used with caution.  

Example: Capital-to-operating cost ratios tend to be considerably higher for conventional programmes than for distance programmes (except in cases in which a distance programme has had to make a major investment in technological infrastructure).

In the area of learner performance, especially in terms of retention and graduation rates, comparing distance learners with conventional learners may be difficult given probable differences in entry qualifications and circumstances of study. Even comparing one distance programme with another is difficult, since different programmes tend to adopt different definitions of who counts as a ‘learner’.  

Example: Some programmes count as learners all those who have enrolled in a course, whereas others limit the use of the term to those who actually sit the exam, and discount the fact that only a small percentage of those initially registered have actually stayed with the course long enough to write the exam.

13.3 Correcting

Because the standards of conventional programmes may often not be appropriate to open and distance learning programmes, the proper response to a gap between the measure and the standard may be to revise the standard rather than to initiate corrective action.

If corrective action is required, however, the highly integrated and complex nature of an open and distance learning programme may make implementation somewhat problematic.

In addition, although open and distance learning programmes tend - and need to be flexible so that they can respond effectively to learners’ needs and circumstances, this flexibility should not be abused. Staff and learners do not appreciate being part of a continuing experiment in which all the variables are undergoing constant modification.

Finally, the cost implications of corrective action may be more far-reaching in an integrated system of the kind that tends to characterise open and distance learning programmes.  

Example: The introduction of a new technology for delivering the teaching component of the programme, even if it is confined to one course in the programme, will have consequences for all aspects of the programme, from recruiting and marketing to staffing and training to developing, producing, and dispatching materials.  

 14. Practice exercise 

14.1 Management issues

Instructions: Divide the group into a number of small working groups, five if possible. Assign to each group two of the operational issues discussed in this section:

staffing;

• integrating media;

• managing teams;

• analysing systems (systems thinking);

• collaborating with other organisations and agencies;

• centralising versus decentralising;

• planning and scheduling;

• costing and budgeting;

• managing staff at a distance; and

• evaluating programme performance.

Ask each group to discuss and document the following three things

• examples of the ways in which these issues emerge in the programmes in which

• group members are involved, even if those programmes do not at the moment 

• involve any distance components;

• the ways in which their programmes are dealing with these issues; and

• the level of satisfaction with these responses, and the kinds of problems for which

• solutions are still being sought.  

Ask each group to present their findings to the larger group, for discussion.

Timeframe: An hour to an hour and a half, depending on the size of your group.

Materials: Flip chart paper or overhead transparencies and marker pens.