OMDE 606 - Costs and Economics of Distance Education and E-learning
Professor Thomas Huelsmann - Spring, 2012
This course was developed by Professor Thomas Huelsmann of Germany and described as follows: "A study of the economics of distance education in the larger context of the economics of education. A variety of methodological approaches (including cost/benefit and cost/effectiveness analysis) are applied to the distance education context. A variety of costing techniques and economic models are explored and applied to different institutional forms and levels of distance education."
What I learned from this class - This class entirely focused on the ‘C’ of the SECTIONS model covered in OMDE603. Similarly to what I wrote for OMDE608, also Costs and Economics was the kind of topic to be understood, and appreciated, only if time and energies are put into it. The course was very well designed, especially to give learners the opportunity of practicing some of the challenging concepts presented and discussed. During the class I developed together with some classmates a group project consisting of a single course. This was an excellent opportunity to experience a team approach, similarly to instructional design, but in an area new to many of the team members. The fact that the Excel file used for calculating the costs was so intuitive and well prepared gave me the right time to focus on the calculation of fixed and variable costs and to understand their impact on the overall costing of DE courses. Costing DE courses is not an easy task and this class helped me in demystifying the belief that DE is less costly than conventional face-to-face education.
How I plan to use this course to excel in my profession – The cost associated to the development and delivery of DE courses is the bottleneck of any DE activity. Listing the ingredients and adjusting them to fit in the budget available will be a constant practice during my profession as DE practitioner. There is no chance to avoid the costing of DE activities and this course will be used to keep always the focus on cost-effectiveness.
Professor Thomas Huelsmann - Spring, 2012
This course was developed by Professor Thomas Huelsmann of Germany and described as follows: "A study of the economics of distance education in the larger context of the economics of education. A variety of methodological approaches (including cost/benefit and cost/effectiveness analysis) are applied to the distance education context. A variety of costing techniques and economic models are explored and applied to different institutional forms and levels of distance education."
What I learned from this class - This class entirely focused on the ‘C’ of the SECTIONS model covered in OMDE603. Similarly to what I wrote for OMDE608, also Costs and Economics was the kind of topic to be understood, and appreciated, only if time and energies are put into it. The course was very well designed, especially to give learners the opportunity of practicing some of the challenging concepts presented and discussed. During the class I developed together with some classmates a group project consisting of a single course. This was an excellent opportunity to experience a team approach, similarly to instructional design, but in an area new to many of the team members. The fact that the Excel file used for calculating the costs was so intuitive and well prepared gave me the right time to focus on the calculation of fixed and variable costs and to understand their impact on the overall costing of DE courses. Costing DE courses is not an easy task and this class helped me in demystifying the belief that DE is less costly than conventional face-to-face education.
How I plan to use this course to excel in my profession – The cost associated to the development and delivery of DE courses is the bottleneck of any DE activity. Listing the ingredients and adjusting them to fit in the budget available will be a constant practice during my profession as DE practitioner. There is no chance to avoid the costing of DE activities and this course will be used to keep always the focus on cost-effectiveness.
omde606_reflection1.docx | |
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