A History of Distance Learning The Rise of the Telecourse (Part 1 of 3) by Ken Freed As far back as when American Philo Farnsworth was developing the first viable television technology in the 1930's, the dream was that the new medium would help justify the belief of Burke and Jefferson that an educated populace in any genuine democracy can and usually will make reasonable decisions about governing themselves . Yet when commercial TV was launched shortly after the end of World War II, the driving force was earning private revenues, not procuring public enlightenment. Still, the dream survived. Most agree the first true educational television program was Sunrise Semester, based in Chicago. From 1959 into the early Sixties, Sunrise Semester featured a single broadcaster, a teacher, standing before a class with a camera shooting over the heads of the students. Yet the effort was not economically sustainable, and the effort soon ended. Here we find the central question for educational media. Lacking government backing, how can educational media ventures pay their own way? Seeing the writing on the chalkboard, California funded a two-year task force (1970-1972) to design the television course or "telecourse" of the future, an effort led by Coast Community College vice chancellor, Dr. Bernard Luskin. Authorized under the Title I community service provision of the U.S. Higher Education Act, the project involved all California community and state colleges along with the University of California. Working in 1972, the task force predicted many of the technological innovations that today we take for granted, including development of the digital compact disk. Luskin's task force defined a telecourse as a complete course of study in a given subject, not adjunct curricula like a single movie, filmstrip, slide show, audiotape, or vinyl record. Students are separated from the teacher, standing or sitting before a camera in a classroom or studio somewhere else, in real time or not. Provisions must be made for such teaching functions as answering student questions, giving and grading tests, reporting student progress to the school. All curricula must meet established academic standards. Assigned a team to develop telecourses according to the new design, Luskin applied a relatively simple business model that still has value. Colleges and universities using the telecourse would pay a licensee fee to the telecourse distributor, which paid telecourse producers, copyright to be negotiated. Coordinating the development, distribution and licensing of telecourses was assigned to a brand new institution, Coastline Community College, which arranged for classes with top instructors to be broadcast by public television station KOCE to colleges, universities and libraries in Orange County. Having no physical campus, Coastline was the first "virtual college." By 1976, backed by grants from Kellogg and other corporations, Coastline was serving 18,500 students within a 150 square mile area of southern California. About the same time Coastline entered the telecourse business, so did Dallas Community College. The key difference was that Dallas started producing pre-packaged telecourses on video tape for export to other colleges. Their vision called for students choosing from a menu of instructional material that they could view any time, as opposed to only being able to see a program on the day and time broadcast. (The Dallas effort forecast the later call for "video on demand" in preference over "appointment TV.") Responses from colleges and universities taught Dallas that telecourses based too closely on current events and the latest research were soon out of date. Production and distribution costs may never be recovered. They evolved a policy of producing telecourses that could hold up year after year, now called an "evergreen" title because the material stays fresh through many seasons. Observing the success of Dallas Community College in getting telecourses to pay their way, Coast began producing and licensing pre-packaged telecourses for use by other colleges, their customers. The California model spread across the country, repeated during the Eighties in Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Florida. Each college added a variation on the theme as the demand for college telecourses grew year by year. Observing this trend, the quasi-government Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), already invested in the children's television efforts that produced Sesame Street with "Big Bird," began producing full telecourses. The love affair did not last, however. Dismayed by constant budget shortfalls, in the late Eighties, PBS settled on being a provider by satellite of adjunct educational content, single programs and series like Bill Nye: The Science Guy, which local PBS stations can buy outright or license to air at specified times for use by local schools and colleges. American efforts were inspired and instructed by the distance learning successes of British Open University, University College Dublin, and state ETV efforts in Sweden, among others, guided by the educational television unit of the European Broadcasting Union, under Rober Winter. He's backed development of a pan-European satellite education network, a world-class model system. The seeds of industry have been planted. Today, about 240 consortiums of public and private educational and creative enterprises in the U.S. are producing telecourses, licensed by about a thousand colleges and universities using the material as a regular part of their degree programs. A parallel video production and distribution industry has sprung up serving the staff training and development needs of corporations and businesses worldwide. A substantial, variegated marketplace. Go to Part 2   For More Information on Distance Learning: Visit the: Online Resources Page at ADEC   (c) 1999 by Ken Freed. Based upon the book, Financial Opportunities in Educational Television, by Ken Freed. Financial Times Media & Telecoms, London, 1998. (ISBN 1-84073-016-1) .

Their vision called for students choosing from a menu of material that could be viewed at any time.

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Last update: 7 APRIL 2003

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