Organizing for Distance Education debate hits the mainstream media

What had been a lively discussion among distance education professionals has now gained a little steam and moves into a more mainstream media outlet - no doubt to draw some attention from more folks in academe.  Just passing this blurb from the Chronicle of Higher Education along as example of the conversation.

Texas A&M's Restructuring Stirs Debate Over Best Way to Run Online Programs - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Texas A&M's Restructuring Stirs Debate Over Best Way to Run Online Programs

By Marc Parry

One university's decision to close its central distance-education office has stirred a national debate over the best way to operate online programs.

Under a restructuring at Texas A&M University at College Station, individual colleges will now manage online learning. And tuition paid for those programs will flow directly through those colleges.

The decision follows a related move at the University of Texas system. As online education continues to grow, those reorganizations have prompted many educators to share their opinions about e-learning management on a listserv run by the technology cooperative WCET.

To some, decentralization is "doomed to failure." To others, a separate bureaucracy "simply doesn't make sense anymore." A third camp advocates a hybrid approach.

Chad Wootton, Texas A&M's associate vice president for external affairs, frames the question of managing online and traditional education like this: "Are we thinking of them as two separate educational opportunities? Or are we thinking of them as the educational opportunity of course delivery, and it just so happens to be a different delivery method?"