There has been a lot of talk about grand plans for virtual universities and colleges, but what is really lacking is the content which can be offered via a number of digital distribution channels.
Those organisations in the learning business, and that includes universities, who wish to gain a competitive advantage need to seriously look at what they are best at doing, how large a market (thinking world-wide) they could capture for their services and whether the content could be offered online in a multimedia format. Investment now in the development of multimedia content and online tutorial support systems could pay dividends in the near future.
The digital distribution channels are now coming into place, standards are beginning to emerge and so long as the multimedia content can be flexibly constructed and deconstructed brokers will soon be coming along to negotiate which digital distribution channels and market sectors are appropriate for their products and services. Deutsche Telekom is an example of this. (see issue 12 for more detail).
Investment in personnel who understand the emerging copyright situation over digital multimedia and can work alongside the developers would also be worthwhile.
There is still too much talking and thinking about it amongst many educational organisations. It’s now time for implementation. That’s the theme of the FLISH97 conference to be held in Sheffield on 19-20 May (see back page for more details).
In areas of the "learning business" which are heavily dependent on public sector funding, yes, there is a need to "jump start" them into action. In the United States, President Bill Clinton has launched the concept of an education rate or "E-rate" providing Internet connection for all US school and libraries at charges of 20% to 90% lower than the normal rate. The E-rate will be funded via a Universal Service Fund (USF).
To help US schools acquire the necessary equipment, Clinton has also launched a five-year, $2 billion worth Technology Literacy Challenge Fund. Under the scheme, states and local communities will be eligible for financial support from the fund.
In Japan, the Ministry of Education (MoE) has unveiled plans to link all state-funded universities and eventually high schools via a satellite system, the Super Collaboration System (SCS), to allow for joint classes and remote participation in lectures. As part of its plans to install 900,000 network-equipped personal computers in schools by the year 2000, the MoE also agreed with the telecoms operator Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) to jointly connect 1,000 schools to the Internet over the next two years.
In Australia, the government unveiled plans to equip every school with PCs and achieve a ratio of one PC for every secondary student by the year 2000.
But infrastructure development is only part of the equation. Developing the content is the most critical part. Aware of this issue the European Commission launched the Educational Multimedia Call for proposals. This has attracted over 800 proposals for the first stage in the process. However, only about 40 projects will finally be accepted. This is not enough to create a large scale educational multimedia content industry.
Now the authoring tools are becoming very sophisticated and relatively easy to use, perhaps the time has come for the re-emergence of an educational multimedia software "cottage industry". This was thriving in the early 80s during the early days of the micro-computer. But software development became too complex requiring large teams of software developers. However, now the critical person is the subject expert working alongside a graphic software designer who understands the subject. They can quickly create a multimedia presentation of a much higher quality than is to be found in most schools or universities. Yet, this can be of a quality that is often as good as seen on TV.
Where there is a requirement for certain types of graphics or animation these can be bought online from a resource bank as is the case for desktop publishing nowadays. For sophisticated graphics, decisions will have to be made as to whether the cost justifies the value of the course. All this can operate as a small scale operation close to the subject expert or easily at a distance via the various telematic systems already available.