March 25, 2006
Majority of Iowa State Enrollments are Delivered by Digital Media in FY06
Iowa State is Iowa’s leader in digital distance education
Iowa State’s use of digital media reflects national trends in delivery of distance education. Fully-online post-secondary education since 2000 has grown at a relatively constant rate of 35% per year (Eduventures*). In a recent Board of Regents study of Iowa’s three state institutions ISU offered more than 2/3rds of the predominantly-digital distance education courses; in 2004-2005 Iowa State had 327 courses compared to 149 courses offered by the other two institutions combined.
In FY04 Iowa State’s Internet delivery of distance education exceeded face-to-face delivery for the first time. Combined with “other” (predominantly CD and DVD delivery), digital media has rapidly overtaken other delivery modes. The combination of accessibility and convenience for students and, in many cases, the reduction of impacts on faculty, continue to motivate these changes.
Iowa State faculty and administrators judge when digital delivery is appropriate and develop criteria to make these decisions.
The Regents institutions’ continuing and distance education units have reported the following factors are considered in selecting delivery mode and technology for distance education:
• Student access. The institution selects the media that will provide students the best access to education content considering geographic proximity and students’ technological resources and skills.
• Pedagogical requirements. The institution determines the best match among the content to be delivered, the teaching and learning experiences, and the devices that will best communicate the content.
• Market requirements. The institution considers the expectations of students for quality, cost, convenience, interaction, and other competitive factors.
• Institutional capacity. The institution considers the availability of the knowledge, technical resources, and skills to the academic unit, the instructor, and the content developer.
• Cost/value. The institution considers the value of more expensive modes of delivery and the budget constraints of the course to use a particular technology.
• Technology characteristics. The institution considers capacity for asynchronous/synchronous delivery, allocation of capital cost, remote site cost, production cost, per-unit delivery, support cost, video quality, audio quality, presentation quality (digital materials), interactivity, reach, convenience, and use limitations.
* Eduventures is a research service that helps universities and other education providers identify new revenue and growth opportunities, improve organizational and operational performance, and integrate leading management practices. Iowa State University is a charter member of Eduventures Continuing and Professional Education Learning Collaborative.