Geography Emerges in Distance Ed

Here are some interesting excerpts from the article Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education - Inside Higher Ed :: Geography Emerges in Distance Ed. I find the commentary to be relevant and interesting. I'm not sure that all of it is irrefutable, but it is insightful.

"the idea that learning online renders geography irrelevant is challenged by trends in survey data. Two-thirds of the 2,033 representative survey respondents — all interested in online education over the next several years — preferred to enroll in online programs located in their state, but only 47 percent had done so; the rest were enrolled in institutions located elsewhere. The report points to that finding as a signal that better-tailored programs and improved marketing could exploit a market demand for localized online education that hasn’t entirely been filled. Although Eduventures makes its full reports available only to paying members, charts provided to Inside Higher Ed point to a correlation between living in larger communities and a desire for online providers that are based locally."

"A reluctance among potential students to embrace the concept of online education could also come from the way it’s often been marketed: as a convenience to busy adult learners with families and jobs. Much of the growth of online learning comes from people for whom the option is merely their second preference. If institutions start to move away from that definition of themselves, Garrett (Richard Garrett, a senior analyst at Eduventures) said, they might become more open to different kinds of students — for example, younger students who have fewer qualms about learning online."

There were also some comments posted by readers which make salient points. Here are a couple of samples:

People tend to chose what’s familiar to them, and local is more familiar that a program in another state or half way around the world. Some of the most venerated, well-established distance learning programs in the world, for example, the University of London’s External Programme, which has been around for a about a century and a half, learned this lesson long ago, and have a network of local providers in far-flung corners of the world teaching U of L curriculum. The University of Phoenix’s success is built on the principle of local provision, which makes distance learning not so distant — in fact, it’s just around the corner. [Richard Hesel, at 11:00 am EST on November 28, 2007]

Our recommendation is that universities interested in these matters concentrate their efforts on developing and managing fully blended programs and employing geo-targeted regional marketing strategies centering on their campuses. Of course these institutions must be capable of converting the geo-targeted leads effectively. This is the real challenge for most institutions. Sluggish responses to email, web, or phone inquiries with a mailed application packet is a thing of the past, practiced by schools that are already or will soon become marginalized. {Robert Tucker, President at InterEd, Inc., at 12:25 pm EST on November 28, 2007]

I find Mr. Tucker's commentary most relevant. His assertion that institutions must be able to convert geo-targeted leads squares with our own experience at TWU.