Strategic Issues in Single- and Dual-mode Distance Education

Strategic Issues in Single- and Dual-mode Distance Education: The Organizational Blending of Two Canadian Distance Universities

This is a publication prepared by Dominique A.M.X. Abrioux, President Emeritus and Professor, Centre for Distance Education, Athabasca University, Canada. Published in 2006 and downloadable: http://www.col.org/colweb/webdav/site/myjahiasite/shared/docs/06SingleDualDE_Canada.pdf.

Executive Summary

The year 2005 witnessed a dramatic transformation in the provision of open and distance learning (ODL) in Canada. On the one hand, the Télé-université de l'Université du Québec (TÉLUQ) gave up its status as a self-standing, singlemode ODL university within the Université du Québec (UQ) system, and joined the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). On the other hand, the British Columbia Open University (BCOU) was acquired by the University College of the Cariboo (UCC), which in turn became Thompson Rivers University (TRU), the sixth public university in today's British Columbia system. While TÉLUQ's change in status resulted from a process that the institution had itself initiated, the wheels for BCOU's transformation were set in motion by a provincial government decision. As such, and after about 30 years, Canada has moved from boasting three single-mode ODL universities to having only one, Athabasca University.

After reviewing the literature that compares single- and dual-mode ODL universities, this study briefly traces the history of both BCOU and TÉLUQ before seeking to elucidate - primarily from interviews with key personnel and government officials - the factors that led to their demise as single-mode ODL universities. The following areas are examined independently and then compared across both institutions: origin; level of government support; institutional credibility and inter-institutional support; collaboration with other institutions; openness and flexibility; academic programming and quality; enrolment growth patterns; cost-effectiveness; governance model; staffing complement; commitment to research; and leadership.

Some of the major concerns raised by interviewees were common to both organizations: the failure to increase market size in the face of stiff competition from provincial dual-mode providers; less than optimal support from sister institutions; restricted autonomy and governance models that limited the organizations' strategic planning and operations; difficulties in developing political support from government, elected officials, students, and alumni. Other identified factors were more institution-specific: questionable leadership (BCOU); poor relations with government (BCOU); absence of a core faculty (BCOU); minimal contribution to research (BCOU); and limited programming (TÉLUQ). Although the future of ODL in both British Columbia and Quebec remains uncertain, the perspectives of the different interviewees, as well as the manner in which ODL has been reconfigured in these jurisdictions, provide a reasonable basis on which to project.

While the open institutional and programmatic characteristics (open admission; low residency; credit coordination/consolidation; credit banking) inherited from BCOU are expected not only to continue to characterize the former BCOU programs, but also to positively impact other TRU programs, several indicators point to the more open aspects of the delivery of distance education courses as practised at BCOU (i.e., uncapped, continuous, and self-paced course registrations) being at risk in the new university. Should this materialize, the distance education component of TRU's open learning model will have much in common with how distance education is practised in traditional dual-mode universities and in single-mode mega-universities: distant but not very open. In contrast to the UCC acquisition of BCOU, the TÉLUQ annexation to UQAM has certain built-in features that, at least for the foreseeable future, seem to ensure a positive future for all aspects of ODL in Quebec. Key to the new arrangement is the concept of the "university within a university," an original model for protecting the ODL culture in a dual-mode institution, and one that has been enshrined in the protocol agreement (Protocol for Joining the Téléuniversité to the Université du Québec à Montréal, 2004) and its appendix (Annex to Protocol Agreement, 2004). However, since the TÉLUQ legislation has been repealed, and as this new organizational model is an internal agreement not referred to in the amended legislation for UQAM (and notwithstanding that the protocol agreement itself requires that both TÉLUQ and UQAM agree to any future changes to the agreement), there is a lingering concern as to whether the new model, and with it the protection of all of TÉLUQ's ODL features, will survive the test of time.

Finally, this study concludes with an examination of the major lessons learned:

• the need for medium-sized ODL institutions to recognize their inherent vulnerability
• the primordial importance of relationships with governments
• the importance of relationship building with other system institutions
• the double-edged-sword nature of inter-institutional collaboration
• the importance of cultivating communities of students and alumni
• the need to ensure that governance structures maximize institutional autonomy, credibility, and flexibility
• the importance of faculty members in gaining recognition as a university
• the importance of increasing market share through product differentiation
• the need to develop and entrench scalable models of program development and delivery
• the importance of leadership

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