Cost Effectiveness in Course Redesign: The Transformation toward E-Learning

Abstract

As Web-based technologies march forward, improved access to higher education by traditional and non-traditional student, alike, is a certainty, but such technologies as a mechanism for lowering costs are still subject for further exploration. Course redesign from traditional to electronic delivery serves not only to grant access or improve achievement for the student, but can offer a cost savings for the institution. Educational leaders in higher education may consider the Web-based redesign alternative as not only a learning instrument, but a means to cut instructional costs. An explanation and application of a cost-measuring instrument, as well as reviews of literature and Web-based instructional models or strategies, is at the heart of this examination of courseredesign. Educational content has become a commodity. Improved networks provide rapid and flexible dissemination of course content, opening up numerous options for organizing programs. Rather than designing content delivery around the schedule and resources of theprovider, the institution, it can be customized around theneeds of the recipient (Lovett, 1996). Courses, programs, and even degrees, can be organized around a combination of flexible course modules to accommodate particular student/client needs. Technology-mediated instruction, taken to its anywhere-anytime extreme, makes traditional academic calendars and curricular structures irrelevant or even a barrier to effective education.