Re: Electronic Reserves

On Fri, 20 Nov 1998, Glen Gummess <gmckay[_at_]nmjc.cc.nm.us> wrote:
>
> Need I reiterate that there's more to distance education than just
> furnishing instruction to droves of students? There's also managing
> all that student information, administratively, and assessing student
> performance to verify that learning has actually taken place.
> Somebody's got to do all that grading. Now, it's further extrapolated
> here that, at some point in time, human resource capacity will not be
> able to meet demand; therefore, it's unrealistic to expect an
> educational institution to support 10,000 students and retain a
> quality program without professional teaching help.
>
> I suggest that this is what tuition dollars are paying for, as a
> supplement to tax dollars, foundations, endowments, etc., etc., etc.
> And those dollars are doing more than just purchasing "knowledge
> resources." They are keeping the network system viable, feeding the
> server, maintaining heating and cooling, keeping the grounds neat
> and paying the light bill. I haven't even touched on salaries,
> supplies or other equipment.
>
> And Mr. Henderson assumes that academe can just snap its fingers and
> whip up 10,000 students for a distance learning class?

In other words, you feel that most revenue should go to marketing and administration rather than instruction and instructional support.

> There is a veritable iceberg of costly issues unseen beneath the
> surface, here. Mr. Henderson is way off the beam when it comes to
> the issue of providing access to "knowledge resources" for scholarly
> pursuits.
>
> My argument has been one of equity for distance students, all along.
> If an article is placed on reserve in a library for access by
> traditional in-person students; then why shouldn't
> students-at-a-distance have similar access, technologically? If
> answers to this question imply a "gutting" of the market for the
> author and the publisher, then we are also implying:

For years higher education asked students to buy books and coursepacks of required reading.

I don't see how a "broken fence" becomes such a juicy invitation to otherwise ethical individuals and institutions.

Why should distance learning "cost" authors and publishers while universities promote administrative growth? I see from the DIGEST OF EDUCATION STATISTICS that research and doctoral universities piled up surplus revenues -- "profits" -- over $3.2 billion in 1994-5 at the expense of library collections.

Albert Henderson, Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY <70244.1532[_at_]compuserve.com> Received on Tue Nov 24 1998 - 22:30:27 GMT