OMDE 606: Costs and Economics of Distance Education & E-Learning
Assignments and Course Work
OMDE 606 Learning Journal
Module
1: The Economics of Education
We began the OMDE 606 course with a debate regarding the financial benefits of higher education. Is higher education an elixir or is it snake oil? Basically, does higher education benefit both the individual and society, or is higher education a waste? Half of the class was assigned to respond one way, with the other half responding another, and I was asked to respond from a "education is elixir" perspective. Personally, if I had to provide my own response to the question, I would have chosen the same thing. I believe that pursuing higher education is more than just a way to obtain more financially. It is about improving oneself from the inside out. I believe learning is an ongoing process, and all adults should strive to better themselves on an intellectual level. Of course, higher education can provide financial opportunities or the chance to obtain a better position within society. However, I would continue to pursue higher education even knowing that I wouldn't benefit financially from doing so. I really enjoyed this activity. I was able to see the perspectives of those discussing both sides of the argument. For the purpose of the assignment, it forced students to conceptualize both sides of the debate. It was a very informative and intriguing activity.
We also began learning about the economics of distance education. One interesting topic that I was previously unaware of included the human capital theory. This theory, as defined by T. W. Schultz, suggests that "education or training raises the productivity of workers by imparting useful knowledge and skills, hence raising worker's future income by increasing their lifetime earnings" (1961). When asked if I thought humans should be referred to as capital, I found myself wanting to say no when internally I knew my answer way yes. It felt harsh to refer to humans as "money-making machines", but isn't that what we are? Even if the end result isn't a gain in the form of actual money, humans as beings are workers and we work for an end result. In addition, the work we do typically benefits society as a whole, making each one of us valuable in one way or another. During this week, I was asked by Professor Huelsmann to view EdStats on http://web.worldbank.org. This website has an endless amount of statistical information about countries around the world. Specifically, I was interested in the information regarding education expansion with secondary schools. It was eye-opening to see the differences in enrollment rates from country to country. In addition to the human capital theory and education expansion, this week we touched on IRR (internal rate of returns) and RORE (return on retained earnings). I was a bit nervous approaching some of the more mathematical aspects of this course. Recently I took statistics, and while I did very well in the class it was difficult for me to apply what I was learning in a mathematical sense. However, I believe I fully understand both concepts and feel confident going forward with that information in my "toolbox".
Reference
Schultz, T. W. (1961). Investment in Human Capital. The American Economic Review, 51(1) 1-17. Retrieved on September 15, 2013, from
http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=8736517&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Module 2: The Techniques of Cost Analysis
This module has to do with cost analysis and drawing up a budget. Personally, I have no experience in finance and I've never had to manage or work with a budget. This module was extremely interesting, and since I love working with Excel, I found this module fun too. The first approach we studied was the Ingredients Approach. This approach is similar to a recipe for meal preparation. In order to draw up a budget you first need to figure out exactly what you need to attack the budget. In this module we had an activity that required us to create our own budget for an online distance learning course, which included faculty, accommodation, premises, equipment, supply, and overhead costs. In addition, we had to calculate the quantities needed for each item and the costs over time. This helped to reinforce the Ingredients Approach, as well as the Modelling costs, which refers to creating mathematical equations to determine what costs will be. In order to determine this, costs are classified in categories like fixed or variable, cost items within categories that are aggregated, and the resulting figures finally inserted in the mathematical equation. The cost analysis assignment was a great tool to help learn not only what these approaches mean, but how they are applied in a real-life situation.
In this module we also covered the definition of distance education. For this course, we used Keegan’s definition that includes the following elements:
1.) quasi-permanent separation of teacher and learner through the length of the learning process
2.) influence of an educational organization both in the planning and preparation of learning materials and in the provision of student support services
3.) the use of technical media, including print, audio, video or computer
4.) two-way communication for the student to benefit from or initiate dialogue
5.) the quasi-permanent absence of the learning group throughout the length of the learning process so that people are usually taught as individuals and not in groups, with the possibility of occasional meetings for both didactic and socialization purposes.
It seems like there is a different definition for distance education, depending on which author you are reading from. However, there seems to be a few things that are common among all definitions, including separation between instructor and student, use of technology, and need for dialogue between all participants.
There are a few important things I learned this module. The first is the difference between fixed and variable costs. Fixed costs include things like buildings and furniture, and variable costs are things like experimental kits that are leased to students. Time is a relevant parameter, and if the item is of value over more than one financial period, then it is a capital cost; otherwise it is an operating cost. Numbers are relevant parameters, whose items depend on the volume of activity (number of students) are called variable; items which are independent from the volume of activity are fixed. So, the horizontal dimension is about costs and number, and the vertical dimension is about costs and time. The relation of money and time is apparent in the concept of interest. The distinction between capital and operating costs is based on a convention about the financial year. If the value corresponding to the costs is consumed within the same financial year in which the costs are incurred, we refer to them as operating costs (revenue costs). If it is not the case, then it is a capital cost, which is generally non-recurrent.
Capital costs represent a value, and you change the proportion of the incurred cost to the period that proportion is consumed. The two ways of doing this include simple depreciation, using social discount rate, or annualization of capital costs. Simple depreciation divides the costs by the number of years during which the item is to be used. Social discount is when you pay only for the value consumed in that period, and the rate to be charged per year varies considerably. Annualization takes into account the forgone interest but produces identical rates over the years the item is used. The formula for this is as follows:
Total costs are the sum of the fixed and variable costs: TC = F + V x N
TC = total costs, F = fixed costs, V = variable costs, N = number of students
Average costs are the total costs divided by the number of students: AC = TC / N
AC = average costs, TC = total costs, N = number of students
Marginal costs (MC) are the costs including one more student in your system:
MC = TC (N + 1) – TC (N) = [FC + V x (N + 1)] – [FC + V x N] = FC – FC + V x (N + 1) – V x N = V
Semi-variable (SV) costs: SV = [N / G] x SN, G = group size, V = variable costs per student, [N / G] = number of groups, SN = semi-variable cost per group
Module 3: The Cost-effectiveness of Distance Education Institutions
This was an exciting module because we had the opportunity to hear from Greville Rumble, leading professional in distance education. Published author, Mr. Rumble answered questions relating to distance education that helped further our experience in this course. I asked the following questions: how important is the relationship between student and instructor, what are a few of the more important instructor characteristics, what was an important turning point in Mr. Rumble’s distance education career, and a piece of advice for someone pursuing a degree in distance education. The answers provided were very helpful, but two of his responses stood out and I added them below:
-In your opinion, how important is the relationship between teacher and student in distance education? Well - in a sense Distance Education and any form of e-learning that prepares materials for students has disaggregated the job of the traditional teacher through a division of labor. This was Otto Peters point when he developed his industrialization of distance education theory in the late 1960s and early 1970s. So there was one group of academic staff who created the materials but often did not meet the students at all (or maybe had a single section of students but could never meet them all because the premise was that the courses would have far more students on them than a single academic/faculty member could teach). [Very small population courses which are more specialized in content may have a faculty member who both designs the course and teaches it - as with this course.] However, in big (high population) courses of course you needed another kind of academic - ones who did "teach" the students but who had not devised the curriculum or prepared the content - and very often you needed a group of these teachers/tutors. But given that the "teaching" had been done in the materials, clearly this second group needed to have a different role - that role being to clarify for students qua individuals anything they had not understood (by being available to answer individual queries); to explicate the material - drawing out significant points, anticipate difficulties, and generally motivate the students but to lecture (a job done in face-to-face sessions where they were provided to groups of students); and to mark the students' assignments - a complex task which involves understanding WHY a student has gone wrong when you can't meet with them, and then putting them right, pointing out the great things they have done to encourage them, and adding ideas which they could follow through).
Interesting in the first one or two teaching years at the UK Open University the class tutor job was actually divorced from the correspondence tutor job, with different contracts - but the tutors hated this so much that the roles were quickly combined. Tutoring - good tutoring - is in my view a crucial ingredient in DE.
-What would you say are a few of the most important characteristics an instructor can have when teaching in an online environment? In my view the crucial attributes are (a) subject knowledge (b) understanding what learners are saying or trying to say - so that you can reformulate badly expressed questions, understand why students are getting it wrong, and put them right while (c) at the same being supportive and encouraging and motivating.
In addition to a visit from Mr. Rumble, we also covered the direct costs of development. Rumble has four systems for cost analysis, including the materials subsystem, the students subsystem, the logistical subsystem, and the regulatory subsystems. Within the materials subsystem, there are cost drivers like authoring texts, editing, and desk top publishing. Media usually includes some sort of complementary printed material. There may also be TV production or radio, which requires the need for media specialists. Production overheads are required if the production facilities are at the institution. When computers are involved there are usually higher programming costs, especially if media are being developed by the institution. If computers are used primarily for communication, then production costs are lower. Course presentation costs are determined based on how many students are in the system, and these are generally variable costs. Cost drivers within the costs of presentation include tutor marked assignments, counseling, and tutoring. These costs are varied based on students learning individually or in groups. Overheads are basically those costs that do not arise directly from a specific course, like buildings, equipment, or services. A generic costing template includes the indirect costs (overheads) of the institution, the development of materials, and delivering the material to the students and communicating with them in presentations. These costs must be recorded in a comprehensive way, but also classified into operating and capital costs and fixed and variable costs. Capital costs correspond to a value created which is consumed over a time greater than one financial year. When annualizing capital costs, capital costs have not simply depreciated because annual interest and foregone interest must be taken into account. Annualization distributes the effects of the foregone interest in such a way that the annualization rate for each year is the same. The annualization formula is below:
You can choose between simple depreciation, social discount, or annualization when dealing with capital costs. The last thing covered in this module is total costs, or the distinction between fixed and variable costs. The formula is TC = F + V x N. TC= total costs, F= fixed costs, V= variable costs, and N= number of students
Module 4: Costing Educational Technologies
This was an important module because we looked at issues related to costs regarding media in distance education. In order to first cost media, we must first classify each of the different types. Holmberg classifies media as one-way-traffic media and two-way-traffic media. One-way-traffic includes the pre-produced course materials and involves students in a sort of simulated communication. Two-way-traffic is the real communication between student and the supporting organization (Holmberg, 1995, p. 2). Professor Huelsmann uses the term “resource media” separate from “communication media”, as both relate to the ways media could be used in the teaching and learning process.
The effectiveness of a media has a direct relation to its cost-effectiveness, which is a ratio of costs to learning outcomes. The media equivalency theory states that information about the choice of a medium alone is not a good discriminator of its effectiveness. From a cost-analysis point of view, two important issues include the debate on interactivity, especially peer interactivity and the compression time debate. Professor Huelsmann states that when it comes to the question to which extent planners can be relaxed about media effectiveness, the formula is: provided the medium is well-chosen and functioning effectively, it plays a minor role in affecting learning outcomes. The only way to adequately measure media is cost per hour of student learning supported by each specific medium or cost per student learning hour (SLH); cost/SLH (medium), so cost/SLH (print) would mean cost to provide reading for one hour student learning. It’s important to remember though, that no one media has higher effectiveness than another, because they are not the same and can’t be measured in that fashion.
Despite all technological advances, the most important instructional medium is the text, and it is just as important in distance education as it is in learning in the traditional sense. Radio broadcasting is considered the ideal medium, as the marginal costs are zero as far as the medium is concerned. On the other hand, audio cassettes and radio programs generally have fixed costs of development, with radio costing more than cassettes. When it comes to television, the fixed costs of development for one hour of educational television are quite high and you would need many more learners in order to cover the costs.
In case I may need this in the future, I wanted to point out that Professor Huelsmann provided students with information regarding the “coster” tool. As a result of institutions being so secretive of the actual costs of much of their budgets, there isn’t a lot of data regarding cost-structures. While this tool was developed with some European universities in mind, it can be switched to show US$ at the appropriate exchange rate. Here you are provided real world cost figures for a range of activities in an institutions budget. The website is: http://www.coster.ws/en/coster_tool.htm
Reference
Holmberg, B. (1995). Theory and Practice of Distance Education. London/New York: Routledge.
Module 5: The Costs and Costing of e-Learning
This module is more like a continuation of the last module, except with more modern and up-to-date technologies. With the current innovative technologies that are utilized in today’s distance learning classroom, the technologies are classified in two separate categories: type-i and type-c. Type-i, since it emphasizes the information processing aspect of ICT use, can be used for exchanging information, information processing and retrieval, applications ranging from multiple choice questions to simulated dialogue. This type raises learner-content interactivity or internal activity to a new level. Type-c emphasizes the communication aspect of using ICT, enhancing the learner-content interactivity without involving the teacher or tutor. CBT packages allow for more effective content-learner interactivity, providing the learner with multiple choice questions, computer marked assignments (CMAs) or spreadsheet simulations. These can be difficult to construct and are very expensive, especially when audio and video clips are added to the package. An example of a CMA includes multiple choice tests, which is a form of interactivity digital media. An interactive computer-marked assignment (ICMA) is a bit more sophisticated than a CMA, as it usually includes generic questions with hints, feedback and scoring. Computer-assisted learning or computer-based training (CAL/CBT) is even more sophisticated, which refers to interactive, adaptive, simulation/tutorials or teaching programs. Multi-media applications are the highest form of computer applications, and it includes various interactive media, like multi-media CAL and audio/visual media. Overall, these applications use computers as information processing devices, and are classified as i-type. One advantage of i-type is that it is in line with traditional cost-structures of ODL, allowing for considerable economies of scale.
Computers can be used in two ways, in a synchronous or asynchronous manner. Video conferencing falls under the synchronous and virtual seminars fall under asynchronous. Being able to effectively support learning has been one of the most difficult and costly aspects of distance education, which is why individual study has been emphasized as much as it has. Course materials have been created in a way that students are able to successfully study independently, but there were still issues regarding correspondence through mail, telephone, or seminars. Asynchronous communication, text-based CMC, has been able to change these issues. It allows for effective support, blurs the separation of content presentation and dialogue. The virtual seminar has emerged as a major form of online teaching. Characteristics of virtual seminars include a shift from exclusive individual study to collaborative work and the use of threading tool for structure. The cost structure is different from the ODL described above, as development costs are lower and the time commitment of teachers is higher. Ultimately, teaching costs are semi-variable costs depending on class size and number of classes conducted. While there isn’t much space for economies of scale, the diseconomies of the range of courses is less of a problem. They can be easily updated and it’s easier to customize a course, especially if it is designed modularly. Unfortunately, they depend on a certain level of available infrastructure and software and are not characterized by a capital-for-labor substitution. However, they are able to improve cost-efficiency through labor-for-labor substitution.
Videoconferencing is a synchronous type-c application, which mimics face-to-face teaching styles. There have been major complaints regarding this type of learning, which are based on the conception of ODL as the most industrialized form of teaching and learning. Much of the arguments against videoconferencing can also be said for virtual seminars. The main differences to traditional distance education lies in the level of interactivity, role of learning group, and use of material instead of costly new course developments. It allows lecturing at a distance and there are two types of set-up: symmetrical case and asymmetrical case. With symmetrical, the sending and receiving stations are all identically equipped for sending as well as receiving. Over time, videoconferencing costs depreciate making the cost not that high. Equipment costs fall into two categories: costs of display equipment and costs of network related equipment. Limitations of videoconferencing include lack of time flexibility and the inverse relation between teacher and student interactivity and audience size.
Digital convergence allows to integrate all media, and the result of questioning media selection is transformed in a questions of determination of educational scenarios. Learning management systems (LMS) integrate pedagogical and administrative systems. They allow student registration, administration, assessment, and teaching; and also track learning, courses, and credits. Typically, the cost of utilizing an LMS is negotiated by the provider of the LMS, and costs are different for each one. Since there are over one hundred different LMSs, the market is fierce. However, it is suggested that in the next decade there will only be a few major contenders. It’s important to note that once an institution integrates an LMS into their school, it is often difficult to transfer to another platform. Once an institution is comfortable with the LMS, prices often begin to rise, which is why it’s important that educators and planner recognize the different cost structures of resource media and communication media. Web-conferencing, an asynchronous text-based CMC, allows a large span of realizations: you can equip the media center of the LMS, but can prepare little content beyond a curriculum and let the course be driven by the communication process.
Module 6: Costs and Economics of Student Support
This module goes over the cost implications of student support, and the focus is placed on cost implications from the perspectives of institutions rather than that of a student or society as a whole. In this module, an important professional and author that provides a lot of the material is Ormond Simpson. Ultimately, student support is defined as all interactions and resources which assist learners in their studies from point of inquiry through completion and beyond: teaching and tutoring, advising and counseling, and administrative and technical support. While traditional distance teaching institutions believed that well designed materials are sufficient for success, the high dropout rates often destroy the argument that DE has a cost-effectiveness advantage compared to that of traditional education. As a result, a great deal of importance has been placed on student support. The point is to put a “protective shield” around the student to protect them from the harsh realities of higher education. Perraton’s Efficiency Cube states that student support cannot be automated, and must require interaction between people in a face-to-face manner. Professor Huelsmann states the following important information: “since distance education often has higher fixed costs of development but lower cost per student than traditional education, large enough enrollment brings down average cost per student in the distance education system below the level of conventional education”. Perraton’s Cube is much the same, the surface few students relates to N; the surface more sophisticated media to less relates to F; the surface more student-teacher interaction relates to V; the arrows indicate the efficiency path leading to lower costs.
Dropouts in distance education have always been a problem. The cost per student comparisons signaled large efficiency gains of distance education, and the situation often looked less favorable if cost per graduate was adapted as the comparing measure. The OU model provided by Professor Huelsmann states that its model calculation of dropout rates could be as large as 89% before it ever lost any of its cost-efficiency. We did an exercise that constructed reduction with student support costs or media sophistication a raise in drop out is coupled. If you take the efficiency path as in Perraton’s Paver you’ll see that alleged efficiency gains do not lead to better cost-effectiveness. The reason for this is that when you don’t place importance on support there is a direct impact on completion. Overall, the claim for distance education for being the more cost-effective solution is impaired by high dropout rates.
Cost of 1 student dropping out = lost grand + cost of recruiting 1 new student
Retention = AC + Eld + (E + C) * PaC + ExS
AC = appropriate course choice
Eld = early identification of vulnerable students
(E + C) = early and continuous
PaC = proactive content
ExS = external support
Ormond’s discussion shows that institutional policies on learner support relate to ethical stances and accepted beliefs on the nature of intelligence. Some still think investing in student support is a waste of money. Professor Huelsmann provides the following quote, which I also find compelling: “They [secondary school teachers association, conservative parties organized industry and commerce in Germany in 1959] maintained that only about 3 to 5 percent of the population are gifted enough to benefit from higher education” (Philips, 1995, p. 18). Regarding open universities & distance education, I think that because America's university system is so vast, there has not been as much of a demand for distance education until recently. People generally have access to several community, state, or private universities without having to look very far. I also feel that there is a stigma attached to earning a degree via a distance education university; there is still a strong preference for traditional education. America also seems to maintain an attitude where higher education is something that is exclusive; it is a luxury and unless you can foot the bill, you can't have it. Opening the educational gates is something I think many American universities and academics are reluctant to do.
Dare I say that education reform in the U.S. has not typically meant innovation (at least not in the nature or level that it has in other places)--but as has been suggested already, some of this may be changing in the U.S. as a few factors are in greater evidence. Various needs and demands (e.g. personal, social, global, commercial, economic, technological, etc.) are driving a greater interest in different educational approaches, methods, systems, and experiences. Too, technology is compelling educators and institutions and pretty much everyone else in society to reexamine the way we educate and what the results are (and might be).
This is perhaps yet additional area in which the U.S. has lagged behind the U.K. and other countries. Whether the U.S. ever "catches up" and establishes a national OU, I don't know (I tend to think it will not go that route). What is probably more likely is that innovations and more "open" approaches will be implemented within current structures and institutions or possibly a new structure/institution that is more regional rather than national.
Reference
Phillips, D. (Ed.). (1995). Education in Germany: Tradition and reform in historical context. London, New York: Routledge.
Module 7: Web 2.0
This module has to do with Web 2.0, and the technologies within this category. According to Wittgenstein’s concept of “family resemblance” to characterize group properties when the Aristotelian definition doesn’t work, stating that there can be a discernible family resemblance without it being possible to identify a set of qualities shared by all family members. The concept of folksonomies is intentionally set against the taxonomic hierarchies, and folksonomies are user created classification systems generally created by collaborative tagging (attaching keywords, annotations, bookmarks). There are three approaches to Web 2.0: business model, as a bundle of technologies, as a set of social practices..
Web 2.0 was coined by O’Reilly, who was actually referring to practices and technologies emerging on the web after the 2001 dot-come shakeup. The following are some of those: Wikipedia, Google, Myspace, Xing, Second Life, Flickr, You Tube, Last.fm. Professor Huelsmann stated that Wikipedia, considered an OER, is funded by donations and lives on an operating budget of merely $240,000 per annum. At first it was difficult to attract contributors, but the driving motive was that people found themselves wanting to do something meaningful, and it ended up becoming one of the world’s biggest encyclopedias, in 200 languages with over 50,000 articles. In a study, it was found that Wikipedia had many more errors than Britannica. However, Wikipedia’s edge is that it is the collective intelligence of the masses. This has led to cost decreases in encyclopedias, including Britannica, and it may result in trouble for publishing.
Google was a way to find things on the web once it started booming with sites and information. It offered services and efficient search functions for free, which attracted many users making it a huge business. There are two types of customer: the user/customer which is offered free and efficient search functions and the client/customer who pays for placing adverts. Based on a pay-for-performance basis, people are assured better matchmaking between adverts and the target audience. This selective advertising assures customers are seeing what is relevant and not spam. As time goes, advertising strategies become more sophisticated, attracting contracts with hosts of content pages and the automatic placement of adverts in pages identified by Google. Overall, the web is used as a portal that allows users to do something they need to do anyway for free.
Myspace was designed as people wanted to use the computer to socialize. Myspace is a platform that, at one point, was the largest networking service with around 100 million users. You can load photos, audio or video files, blog, and form communities. Xing is a prominent site that allows people to socialize how they want; to market themselves; to promote; to form social networks; for job opportunities. While this site is free, but the profiles of users are collected in the database which generates important address information for targeted marketing. Second Life is another site dedicated to socializing, but users do it as a means of avatars adding a playful dimension to social interaction. While it may attract those who wish to participate in pornography or ageplay, it has the potential for a wide array of educational uses. Many universities have bought space in this platform to conduct part of their courses there for its immersive quality of artificial worlds and the space for playful irony opened by interacting via avatars. Flickr allows people to publish their pictures online, and is part of the Janus-faced web 2.0 business model. It is a free platform where people can create value directly or indirectly. It also allows users a way to kindle a community spirit among others by tagging photos, they can create theme-related groups, and it allows the forming of communities who interact with social software.
YouTube is similar to Flickr, except YouTube provides a portal and services for self-produced videos. There are around 60,000 videos uploaded daily to servers, and it also includes social software features, allows the formation of communities, and has tagging and commenting features. While it’s not very profitable, it was purchased by Google for allegedly 1.5 billion dollars. It provides access to new types of social networking, bringing together even musicians from around the world, and people can have others rate their performances. Last.fm is a free music portal that allows users to listen to a wide range of music, and is used to illustrate one of the business ideas closely associated with web 2.0. The long tail argument runs like this: increasingly there are more niche markets than hit markets; in fact, the niche markets mushroom proportional to falling production prices, and at the same time it becomes easier to reach these niche markets. For the music industry, it is important for them to gather information about actual listening habits of users. When installed, they can monitor the music listening habits and generate preference profiles of listeners, which are a high value for the music industry.
Businesses use the Internet as a platform to do business. In order for businesses to do what they do, there must be a platform where they can do that at no or very low costs. They are not interacting with the user but providing space to pursue their goals. Two forms are generated: as digital content and digital traces. Digital content includes text, photos, audio or video clips. Loading up to the providers’ website digital content always creates digital traces. There are two issues regarding the respective values: commercial re-appropriation of voluntary work creates questions of exploitation and the commercial exploitation of the user-generated digital traces for the purpose of marketing creates questions on surveillance.
The amount of users on web 2.0 businesses created valuable content for businesses, creating a large amount of digital traces that web 2.0 businesses market backstage. Backstage is where business transactions are made, where money changes hands. They trade digital traces of their users to commercially interested third parties. Users don’t seem to mind as a result of the ubiquity of digital technologies and their pervasiveness in all sorts of social transaction automatically contributing to a flow of personal data through the digital networks. Surveillance of this information is more ambiguous than users realize. Social sorting is widely accepted as an inevitable trade-off, like video cameras that are used to fight against shoplifting. Participatory/horizontal surveillance resembles a snoop’s dream, and governments became interested, as the information archived in networks is quite impressive: over 20 billion items, 19.2 billion web documents, 1.6 billion images, and over 50 million audio and video files. The government made companies like Google turn over their data to uphold the online pornography law. Social networking lends itself to participatory surveillance due to the following four characteristics: persistency, searchability, replicability, and invisible audiences.
With this being the last module, I wanted to post a few final reflections on the course and what I've learned so far this semester. While I've enjoyed this course, I did have some difficulty with the collaborative assignment. I think this type of assignment is an effective way at creating a sense of community among students, but is not effective when there is little oversight on group activity. If I may provide a suggestion that I was a part of in another course, I think all students should have to submit a paragraph that details their part in the assignment. In addition, they should also have to post a few sentences describing what they thought their fellow group members accomplished for the group project. A great deal of the project grade should be influenced by the contributions made by that student. This way there aren't students who refuse to contribute, and they don't receive a grade they didn't work for. Besides my experience with the group project, I feel that the assignments helped to reinforce the material we were learning in each module. I enjoyed the material, and was surprised that so much could be crammed into a single course. At the start of the semester, I was definitely intimidated while reading the syllabus. However, I'm glad I decided to stick it out, because the course was just challenging enough. While my journal is packed with the information I learned this semester, I wanted to make sure that I recorded everything I could, as it is all important as I proceed with my degree.
I'm not sure if she will have the opportunity to read this, but I wanted to say that Stefanie Brunner has been a big help to me throughout the semester. I am a disabled veteran with bouts of anxiety, and she happily responded to every message I sent her regarding my "issues" as each module passed. She helped to ease my mind, reassuring me that I was on the right track, and she provided me with valuable information that made progressing through this course that much easier. In addition, she always responded quickly and sought help when she didn't have an answer for me. I appreciate faculty like her, that go above and beyond what they are required to do. I hope to see her, or people like her, in future courses.
I went to UMUC between 2005-2007 and am back to pursue an MDE. This course has been an excellent experience, and was quite different from the courses I took the last time I was here. There seems to be more emphasis placed on dialogue, which certainly made me feel less isolated as I proceeded through the semester. I believe this is an important aspect of DE, and will remain a central focus in future DE courses worldwide. While at times I felt confused and lost, I truly enjoyed this course and am excited to start another semester in the spring. Thank you OMDE 606 staff!
~Stephanie Barbee
We began the OMDE 606 course with a debate regarding the financial benefits of higher education. Is higher education an elixir or is it snake oil? Basically, does higher education benefit both the individual and society, or is higher education a waste? Half of the class was assigned to respond one way, with the other half responding another, and I was asked to respond from a "education is elixir" perspective. Personally, if I had to provide my own response to the question, I would have chosen the same thing. I believe that pursuing higher education is more than just a way to obtain more financially. It is about improving oneself from the inside out. I believe learning is an ongoing process, and all adults should strive to better themselves on an intellectual level. Of course, higher education can provide financial opportunities or the chance to obtain a better position within society. However, I would continue to pursue higher education even knowing that I wouldn't benefit financially from doing so. I really enjoyed this activity. I was able to see the perspectives of those discussing both sides of the argument. For the purpose of the assignment, it forced students to conceptualize both sides of the debate. It was a very informative and intriguing activity.
We also began learning about the economics of distance education. One interesting topic that I was previously unaware of included the human capital theory. This theory, as defined by T. W. Schultz, suggests that "education or training raises the productivity of workers by imparting useful knowledge and skills, hence raising worker's future income by increasing their lifetime earnings" (1961). When asked if I thought humans should be referred to as capital, I found myself wanting to say no when internally I knew my answer way yes. It felt harsh to refer to humans as "money-making machines", but isn't that what we are? Even if the end result isn't a gain in the form of actual money, humans as beings are workers and we work for an end result. In addition, the work we do typically benefits society as a whole, making each one of us valuable in one way or another. During this week, I was asked by Professor Huelsmann to view EdStats on http://web.worldbank.org. This website has an endless amount of statistical information about countries around the world. Specifically, I was interested in the information regarding education expansion with secondary schools. It was eye-opening to see the differences in enrollment rates from country to country. In addition to the human capital theory and education expansion, this week we touched on IRR (internal rate of returns) and RORE (return on retained earnings). I was a bit nervous approaching some of the more mathematical aspects of this course. Recently I took statistics, and while I did very well in the class it was difficult for me to apply what I was learning in a mathematical sense. However, I believe I fully understand both concepts and feel confident going forward with that information in my "toolbox".
Reference
Schultz, T. W. (1961). Investment in Human Capital. The American Economic Review, 51(1) 1-17. Retrieved on September 15, 2013, from
http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=8736517&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Module 2: The Techniques of Cost Analysis
This module has to do with cost analysis and drawing up a budget. Personally, I have no experience in finance and I've never had to manage or work with a budget. This module was extremely interesting, and since I love working with Excel, I found this module fun too. The first approach we studied was the Ingredients Approach. This approach is similar to a recipe for meal preparation. In order to draw up a budget you first need to figure out exactly what you need to attack the budget. In this module we had an activity that required us to create our own budget for an online distance learning course, which included faculty, accommodation, premises, equipment, supply, and overhead costs. In addition, we had to calculate the quantities needed for each item and the costs over time. This helped to reinforce the Ingredients Approach, as well as the Modelling costs, which refers to creating mathematical equations to determine what costs will be. In order to determine this, costs are classified in categories like fixed or variable, cost items within categories that are aggregated, and the resulting figures finally inserted in the mathematical equation. The cost analysis assignment was a great tool to help learn not only what these approaches mean, but how they are applied in a real-life situation.
In this module we also covered the definition of distance education. For this course, we used Keegan’s definition that includes the following elements:
1.) quasi-permanent separation of teacher and learner through the length of the learning process
2.) influence of an educational organization both in the planning and preparation of learning materials and in the provision of student support services
3.) the use of technical media, including print, audio, video or computer
4.) two-way communication for the student to benefit from or initiate dialogue
5.) the quasi-permanent absence of the learning group throughout the length of the learning process so that people are usually taught as individuals and not in groups, with the possibility of occasional meetings for both didactic and socialization purposes.
It seems like there is a different definition for distance education, depending on which author you are reading from. However, there seems to be a few things that are common among all definitions, including separation between instructor and student, use of technology, and need for dialogue between all participants.
There are a few important things I learned this module. The first is the difference between fixed and variable costs. Fixed costs include things like buildings and furniture, and variable costs are things like experimental kits that are leased to students. Time is a relevant parameter, and if the item is of value over more than one financial period, then it is a capital cost; otherwise it is an operating cost. Numbers are relevant parameters, whose items depend on the volume of activity (number of students) are called variable; items which are independent from the volume of activity are fixed. So, the horizontal dimension is about costs and number, and the vertical dimension is about costs and time. The relation of money and time is apparent in the concept of interest. The distinction between capital and operating costs is based on a convention about the financial year. If the value corresponding to the costs is consumed within the same financial year in which the costs are incurred, we refer to them as operating costs (revenue costs). If it is not the case, then it is a capital cost, which is generally non-recurrent.
Capital costs represent a value, and you change the proportion of the incurred cost to the period that proportion is consumed. The two ways of doing this include simple depreciation, using social discount rate, or annualization of capital costs. Simple depreciation divides the costs by the number of years during which the item is to be used. Social discount is when you pay only for the value consumed in that period, and the rate to be charged per year varies considerably. Annualization takes into account the forgone interest but produces identical rates over the years the item is used. The formula for this is as follows:
Total costs are the sum of the fixed and variable costs: TC = F + V x N
TC = total costs, F = fixed costs, V = variable costs, N = number of students
Average costs are the total costs divided by the number of students: AC = TC / N
AC = average costs, TC = total costs, N = number of students
Marginal costs (MC) are the costs including one more student in your system:
MC = TC (N + 1) – TC (N) = [FC + V x (N + 1)] – [FC + V x N] = FC – FC + V x (N + 1) – V x N = V
Semi-variable (SV) costs: SV = [N / G] x SN, G = group size, V = variable costs per student, [N / G] = number of groups, SN = semi-variable cost per group
Module 3: The Cost-effectiveness of Distance Education Institutions
This was an exciting module because we had the opportunity to hear from Greville Rumble, leading professional in distance education. Published author, Mr. Rumble answered questions relating to distance education that helped further our experience in this course. I asked the following questions: how important is the relationship between student and instructor, what are a few of the more important instructor characteristics, what was an important turning point in Mr. Rumble’s distance education career, and a piece of advice for someone pursuing a degree in distance education. The answers provided were very helpful, but two of his responses stood out and I added them below:
-In your opinion, how important is the relationship between teacher and student in distance education? Well - in a sense Distance Education and any form of e-learning that prepares materials for students has disaggregated the job of the traditional teacher through a division of labor. This was Otto Peters point when he developed his industrialization of distance education theory in the late 1960s and early 1970s. So there was one group of academic staff who created the materials but often did not meet the students at all (or maybe had a single section of students but could never meet them all because the premise was that the courses would have far more students on them than a single academic/faculty member could teach). [Very small population courses which are more specialized in content may have a faculty member who both designs the course and teaches it - as with this course.] However, in big (high population) courses of course you needed another kind of academic - ones who did "teach" the students but who had not devised the curriculum or prepared the content - and very often you needed a group of these teachers/tutors. But given that the "teaching" had been done in the materials, clearly this second group needed to have a different role - that role being to clarify for students qua individuals anything they had not understood (by being available to answer individual queries); to explicate the material - drawing out significant points, anticipate difficulties, and generally motivate the students but to lecture (a job done in face-to-face sessions where they were provided to groups of students); and to mark the students' assignments - a complex task which involves understanding WHY a student has gone wrong when you can't meet with them, and then putting them right, pointing out the great things they have done to encourage them, and adding ideas which they could follow through).
Interesting in the first one or two teaching years at the UK Open University the class tutor job was actually divorced from the correspondence tutor job, with different contracts - but the tutors hated this so much that the roles were quickly combined. Tutoring - good tutoring - is in my view a crucial ingredient in DE.
-What would you say are a few of the most important characteristics an instructor can have when teaching in an online environment? In my view the crucial attributes are (a) subject knowledge (b) understanding what learners are saying or trying to say - so that you can reformulate badly expressed questions, understand why students are getting it wrong, and put them right while (c) at the same being supportive and encouraging and motivating.
In addition to a visit from Mr. Rumble, we also covered the direct costs of development. Rumble has four systems for cost analysis, including the materials subsystem, the students subsystem, the logistical subsystem, and the regulatory subsystems. Within the materials subsystem, there are cost drivers like authoring texts, editing, and desk top publishing. Media usually includes some sort of complementary printed material. There may also be TV production or radio, which requires the need for media specialists. Production overheads are required if the production facilities are at the institution. When computers are involved there are usually higher programming costs, especially if media are being developed by the institution. If computers are used primarily for communication, then production costs are lower. Course presentation costs are determined based on how many students are in the system, and these are generally variable costs. Cost drivers within the costs of presentation include tutor marked assignments, counseling, and tutoring. These costs are varied based on students learning individually or in groups. Overheads are basically those costs that do not arise directly from a specific course, like buildings, equipment, or services. A generic costing template includes the indirect costs (overheads) of the institution, the development of materials, and delivering the material to the students and communicating with them in presentations. These costs must be recorded in a comprehensive way, but also classified into operating and capital costs and fixed and variable costs. Capital costs correspond to a value created which is consumed over a time greater than one financial year. When annualizing capital costs, capital costs have not simply depreciated because annual interest and foregone interest must be taken into account. Annualization distributes the effects of the foregone interest in such a way that the annualization rate for each year is the same. The annualization formula is below:
You can choose between simple depreciation, social discount, or annualization when dealing with capital costs. The last thing covered in this module is total costs, or the distinction between fixed and variable costs. The formula is TC = F + V x N. TC= total costs, F= fixed costs, V= variable costs, and N= number of students
Module 4: Costing Educational Technologies
This was an important module because we looked at issues related to costs regarding media in distance education. In order to first cost media, we must first classify each of the different types. Holmberg classifies media as one-way-traffic media and two-way-traffic media. One-way-traffic includes the pre-produced course materials and involves students in a sort of simulated communication. Two-way-traffic is the real communication between student and the supporting organization (Holmberg, 1995, p. 2). Professor Huelsmann uses the term “resource media” separate from “communication media”, as both relate to the ways media could be used in the teaching and learning process.
The effectiveness of a media has a direct relation to its cost-effectiveness, which is a ratio of costs to learning outcomes. The media equivalency theory states that information about the choice of a medium alone is not a good discriminator of its effectiveness. From a cost-analysis point of view, two important issues include the debate on interactivity, especially peer interactivity and the compression time debate. Professor Huelsmann states that when it comes to the question to which extent planners can be relaxed about media effectiveness, the formula is: provided the medium is well-chosen and functioning effectively, it plays a minor role in affecting learning outcomes. The only way to adequately measure media is cost per hour of student learning supported by each specific medium or cost per student learning hour (SLH); cost/SLH (medium), so cost/SLH (print) would mean cost to provide reading for one hour student learning. It’s important to remember though, that no one media has higher effectiveness than another, because they are not the same and can’t be measured in that fashion.
Despite all technological advances, the most important instructional medium is the text, and it is just as important in distance education as it is in learning in the traditional sense. Radio broadcasting is considered the ideal medium, as the marginal costs are zero as far as the medium is concerned. On the other hand, audio cassettes and radio programs generally have fixed costs of development, with radio costing more than cassettes. When it comes to television, the fixed costs of development for one hour of educational television are quite high and you would need many more learners in order to cover the costs.
In case I may need this in the future, I wanted to point out that Professor Huelsmann provided students with information regarding the “coster” tool. As a result of institutions being so secretive of the actual costs of much of their budgets, there isn’t a lot of data regarding cost-structures. While this tool was developed with some European universities in mind, it can be switched to show US$ at the appropriate exchange rate. Here you are provided real world cost figures for a range of activities in an institutions budget. The website is: http://www.coster.ws/en/coster_tool.htm
Reference
Holmberg, B. (1995). Theory and Practice of Distance Education. London/New York: Routledge.
Module 5: The Costs and Costing of e-Learning
This module is more like a continuation of the last module, except with more modern and up-to-date technologies. With the current innovative technologies that are utilized in today’s distance learning classroom, the technologies are classified in two separate categories: type-i and type-c. Type-i, since it emphasizes the information processing aspect of ICT use, can be used for exchanging information, information processing and retrieval, applications ranging from multiple choice questions to simulated dialogue. This type raises learner-content interactivity or internal activity to a new level. Type-c emphasizes the communication aspect of using ICT, enhancing the learner-content interactivity without involving the teacher or tutor. CBT packages allow for more effective content-learner interactivity, providing the learner with multiple choice questions, computer marked assignments (CMAs) or spreadsheet simulations. These can be difficult to construct and are very expensive, especially when audio and video clips are added to the package. An example of a CMA includes multiple choice tests, which is a form of interactivity digital media. An interactive computer-marked assignment (ICMA) is a bit more sophisticated than a CMA, as it usually includes generic questions with hints, feedback and scoring. Computer-assisted learning or computer-based training (CAL/CBT) is even more sophisticated, which refers to interactive, adaptive, simulation/tutorials or teaching programs. Multi-media applications are the highest form of computer applications, and it includes various interactive media, like multi-media CAL and audio/visual media. Overall, these applications use computers as information processing devices, and are classified as i-type. One advantage of i-type is that it is in line with traditional cost-structures of ODL, allowing for considerable economies of scale.
Computers can be used in two ways, in a synchronous or asynchronous manner. Video conferencing falls under the synchronous and virtual seminars fall under asynchronous. Being able to effectively support learning has been one of the most difficult and costly aspects of distance education, which is why individual study has been emphasized as much as it has. Course materials have been created in a way that students are able to successfully study independently, but there were still issues regarding correspondence through mail, telephone, or seminars. Asynchronous communication, text-based CMC, has been able to change these issues. It allows for effective support, blurs the separation of content presentation and dialogue. The virtual seminar has emerged as a major form of online teaching. Characteristics of virtual seminars include a shift from exclusive individual study to collaborative work and the use of threading tool for structure. The cost structure is different from the ODL described above, as development costs are lower and the time commitment of teachers is higher. Ultimately, teaching costs are semi-variable costs depending on class size and number of classes conducted. While there isn’t much space for economies of scale, the diseconomies of the range of courses is less of a problem. They can be easily updated and it’s easier to customize a course, especially if it is designed modularly. Unfortunately, they depend on a certain level of available infrastructure and software and are not characterized by a capital-for-labor substitution. However, they are able to improve cost-efficiency through labor-for-labor substitution.
Videoconferencing is a synchronous type-c application, which mimics face-to-face teaching styles. There have been major complaints regarding this type of learning, which are based on the conception of ODL as the most industrialized form of teaching and learning. Much of the arguments against videoconferencing can also be said for virtual seminars. The main differences to traditional distance education lies in the level of interactivity, role of learning group, and use of material instead of costly new course developments. It allows lecturing at a distance and there are two types of set-up: symmetrical case and asymmetrical case. With symmetrical, the sending and receiving stations are all identically equipped for sending as well as receiving. Over time, videoconferencing costs depreciate making the cost not that high. Equipment costs fall into two categories: costs of display equipment and costs of network related equipment. Limitations of videoconferencing include lack of time flexibility and the inverse relation between teacher and student interactivity and audience size.
Digital convergence allows to integrate all media, and the result of questioning media selection is transformed in a questions of determination of educational scenarios. Learning management systems (LMS) integrate pedagogical and administrative systems. They allow student registration, administration, assessment, and teaching; and also track learning, courses, and credits. Typically, the cost of utilizing an LMS is negotiated by the provider of the LMS, and costs are different for each one. Since there are over one hundred different LMSs, the market is fierce. However, it is suggested that in the next decade there will only be a few major contenders. It’s important to note that once an institution integrates an LMS into their school, it is often difficult to transfer to another platform. Once an institution is comfortable with the LMS, prices often begin to rise, which is why it’s important that educators and planner recognize the different cost structures of resource media and communication media. Web-conferencing, an asynchronous text-based CMC, allows a large span of realizations: you can equip the media center of the LMS, but can prepare little content beyond a curriculum and let the course be driven by the communication process.
Module 6: Costs and Economics of Student Support
This module goes over the cost implications of student support, and the focus is placed on cost implications from the perspectives of institutions rather than that of a student or society as a whole. In this module, an important professional and author that provides a lot of the material is Ormond Simpson. Ultimately, student support is defined as all interactions and resources which assist learners in their studies from point of inquiry through completion and beyond: teaching and tutoring, advising and counseling, and administrative and technical support. While traditional distance teaching institutions believed that well designed materials are sufficient for success, the high dropout rates often destroy the argument that DE has a cost-effectiveness advantage compared to that of traditional education. As a result, a great deal of importance has been placed on student support. The point is to put a “protective shield” around the student to protect them from the harsh realities of higher education. Perraton’s Efficiency Cube states that student support cannot be automated, and must require interaction between people in a face-to-face manner. Professor Huelsmann states the following important information: “since distance education often has higher fixed costs of development but lower cost per student than traditional education, large enough enrollment brings down average cost per student in the distance education system below the level of conventional education”. Perraton’s Cube is much the same, the surface few students relates to N; the surface more sophisticated media to less relates to F; the surface more student-teacher interaction relates to V; the arrows indicate the efficiency path leading to lower costs.
Dropouts in distance education have always been a problem. The cost per student comparisons signaled large efficiency gains of distance education, and the situation often looked less favorable if cost per graduate was adapted as the comparing measure. The OU model provided by Professor Huelsmann states that its model calculation of dropout rates could be as large as 89% before it ever lost any of its cost-efficiency. We did an exercise that constructed reduction with student support costs or media sophistication a raise in drop out is coupled. If you take the efficiency path as in Perraton’s Paver you’ll see that alleged efficiency gains do not lead to better cost-effectiveness. The reason for this is that when you don’t place importance on support there is a direct impact on completion. Overall, the claim for distance education for being the more cost-effective solution is impaired by high dropout rates.
Cost of 1 student dropping out = lost grand + cost of recruiting 1 new student
Retention = AC + Eld + (E + C) * PaC + ExS
AC = appropriate course choice
Eld = early identification of vulnerable students
(E + C) = early and continuous
PaC = proactive content
ExS = external support
Ormond’s discussion shows that institutional policies on learner support relate to ethical stances and accepted beliefs on the nature of intelligence. Some still think investing in student support is a waste of money. Professor Huelsmann provides the following quote, which I also find compelling: “They [secondary school teachers association, conservative parties organized industry and commerce in Germany in 1959] maintained that only about 3 to 5 percent of the population are gifted enough to benefit from higher education” (Philips, 1995, p. 18). Regarding open universities & distance education, I think that because America's university system is so vast, there has not been as much of a demand for distance education until recently. People generally have access to several community, state, or private universities without having to look very far. I also feel that there is a stigma attached to earning a degree via a distance education university; there is still a strong preference for traditional education. America also seems to maintain an attitude where higher education is something that is exclusive; it is a luxury and unless you can foot the bill, you can't have it. Opening the educational gates is something I think many American universities and academics are reluctant to do.
Dare I say that education reform in the U.S. has not typically meant innovation (at least not in the nature or level that it has in other places)--but as has been suggested already, some of this may be changing in the U.S. as a few factors are in greater evidence. Various needs and demands (e.g. personal, social, global, commercial, economic, technological, etc.) are driving a greater interest in different educational approaches, methods, systems, and experiences. Too, technology is compelling educators and institutions and pretty much everyone else in society to reexamine the way we educate and what the results are (and might be).
This is perhaps yet additional area in which the U.S. has lagged behind the U.K. and other countries. Whether the U.S. ever "catches up" and establishes a national OU, I don't know (I tend to think it will not go that route). What is probably more likely is that innovations and more "open" approaches will be implemented within current structures and institutions or possibly a new structure/institution that is more regional rather than national.
Reference
Phillips, D. (Ed.). (1995). Education in Germany: Tradition and reform in historical context. London, New York: Routledge.
Module 7: Web 2.0
This module has to do with Web 2.0, and the technologies within this category. According to Wittgenstein’s concept of “family resemblance” to characterize group properties when the Aristotelian definition doesn’t work, stating that there can be a discernible family resemblance without it being possible to identify a set of qualities shared by all family members. The concept of folksonomies is intentionally set against the taxonomic hierarchies, and folksonomies are user created classification systems generally created by collaborative tagging (attaching keywords, annotations, bookmarks). There are three approaches to Web 2.0: business model, as a bundle of technologies, as a set of social practices..
Web 2.0 was coined by O’Reilly, who was actually referring to practices and technologies emerging on the web after the 2001 dot-come shakeup. The following are some of those: Wikipedia, Google, Myspace, Xing, Second Life, Flickr, You Tube, Last.fm. Professor Huelsmann stated that Wikipedia, considered an OER, is funded by donations and lives on an operating budget of merely $240,000 per annum. At first it was difficult to attract contributors, but the driving motive was that people found themselves wanting to do something meaningful, and it ended up becoming one of the world’s biggest encyclopedias, in 200 languages with over 50,000 articles. In a study, it was found that Wikipedia had many more errors than Britannica. However, Wikipedia’s edge is that it is the collective intelligence of the masses. This has led to cost decreases in encyclopedias, including Britannica, and it may result in trouble for publishing.
Google was a way to find things on the web once it started booming with sites and information. It offered services and efficient search functions for free, which attracted many users making it a huge business. There are two types of customer: the user/customer which is offered free and efficient search functions and the client/customer who pays for placing adverts. Based on a pay-for-performance basis, people are assured better matchmaking between adverts and the target audience. This selective advertising assures customers are seeing what is relevant and not spam. As time goes, advertising strategies become more sophisticated, attracting contracts with hosts of content pages and the automatic placement of adverts in pages identified by Google. Overall, the web is used as a portal that allows users to do something they need to do anyway for free.
Myspace was designed as people wanted to use the computer to socialize. Myspace is a platform that, at one point, was the largest networking service with around 100 million users. You can load photos, audio or video files, blog, and form communities. Xing is a prominent site that allows people to socialize how they want; to market themselves; to promote; to form social networks; for job opportunities. While this site is free, but the profiles of users are collected in the database which generates important address information for targeted marketing. Second Life is another site dedicated to socializing, but users do it as a means of avatars adding a playful dimension to social interaction. While it may attract those who wish to participate in pornography or ageplay, it has the potential for a wide array of educational uses. Many universities have bought space in this platform to conduct part of their courses there for its immersive quality of artificial worlds and the space for playful irony opened by interacting via avatars. Flickr allows people to publish their pictures online, and is part of the Janus-faced web 2.0 business model. It is a free platform where people can create value directly or indirectly. It also allows users a way to kindle a community spirit among others by tagging photos, they can create theme-related groups, and it allows the forming of communities who interact with social software.
YouTube is similar to Flickr, except YouTube provides a portal and services for self-produced videos. There are around 60,000 videos uploaded daily to servers, and it also includes social software features, allows the formation of communities, and has tagging and commenting features. While it’s not very profitable, it was purchased by Google for allegedly 1.5 billion dollars. It provides access to new types of social networking, bringing together even musicians from around the world, and people can have others rate their performances. Last.fm is a free music portal that allows users to listen to a wide range of music, and is used to illustrate one of the business ideas closely associated with web 2.0. The long tail argument runs like this: increasingly there are more niche markets than hit markets; in fact, the niche markets mushroom proportional to falling production prices, and at the same time it becomes easier to reach these niche markets. For the music industry, it is important for them to gather information about actual listening habits of users. When installed, they can monitor the music listening habits and generate preference profiles of listeners, which are a high value for the music industry.
Businesses use the Internet as a platform to do business. In order for businesses to do what they do, there must be a platform where they can do that at no or very low costs. They are not interacting with the user but providing space to pursue their goals. Two forms are generated: as digital content and digital traces. Digital content includes text, photos, audio or video clips. Loading up to the providers’ website digital content always creates digital traces. There are two issues regarding the respective values: commercial re-appropriation of voluntary work creates questions of exploitation and the commercial exploitation of the user-generated digital traces for the purpose of marketing creates questions on surveillance.
The amount of users on web 2.0 businesses created valuable content for businesses, creating a large amount of digital traces that web 2.0 businesses market backstage. Backstage is where business transactions are made, where money changes hands. They trade digital traces of their users to commercially interested third parties. Users don’t seem to mind as a result of the ubiquity of digital technologies and their pervasiveness in all sorts of social transaction automatically contributing to a flow of personal data through the digital networks. Surveillance of this information is more ambiguous than users realize. Social sorting is widely accepted as an inevitable trade-off, like video cameras that are used to fight against shoplifting. Participatory/horizontal surveillance resembles a snoop’s dream, and governments became interested, as the information archived in networks is quite impressive: over 20 billion items, 19.2 billion web documents, 1.6 billion images, and over 50 million audio and video files. The government made companies like Google turn over their data to uphold the online pornography law. Social networking lends itself to participatory surveillance due to the following four characteristics: persistency, searchability, replicability, and invisible audiences.
With this being the last module, I wanted to post a few final reflections on the course and what I've learned so far this semester. While I've enjoyed this course, I did have some difficulty with the collaborative assignment. I think this type of assignment is an effective way at creating a sense of community among students, but is not effective when there is little oversight on group activity. If I may provide a suggestion that I was a part of in another course, I think all students should have to submit a paragraph that details their part in the assignment. In addition, they should also have to post a few sentences describing what they thought their fellow group members accomplished for the group project. A great deal of the project grade should be influenced by the contributions made by that student. This way there aren't students who refuse to contribute, and they don't receive a grade they didn't work for. Besides my experience with the group project, I feel that the assignments helped to reinforce the material we were learning in each module. I enjoyed the material, and was surprised that so much could be crammed into a single course. At the start of the semester, I was definitely intimidated while reading the syllabus. However, I'm glad I decided to stick it out, because the course was just challenging enough. While my journal is packed with the information I learned this semester, I wanted to make sure that I recorded everything I could, as it is all important as I proceed with my degree.
I'm not sure if she will have the opportunity to read this, but I wanted to say that Stefanie Brunner has been a big help to me throughout the semester. I am a disabled veteran with bouts of anxiety, and she happily responded to every message I sent her regarding my "issues" as each module passed. She helped to ease my mind, reassuring me that I was on the right track, and she provided me with valuable information that made progressing through this course that much easier. In addition, she always responded quickly and sought help when she didn't have an answer for me. I appreciate faculty like her, that go above and beyond what they are required to do. I hope to see her, or people like her, in future courses.
I went to UMUC between 2005-2007 and am back to pursue an MDE. This course has been an excellent experience, and was quite different from the courses I took the last time I was here. There seems to be more emphasis placed on dialogue, which certainly made me feel less isolated as I proceeded through the semester. I believe this is an important aspect of DE, and will remain a central focus in future DE courses worldwide. While at times I felt confused and lost, I truly enjoyed this course and am excited to start another semester in the spring. Thank you OMDE 606 staff!
~Stephanie Barbee