Letter from the President
Seeking Quality
In
his 1970s book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig
documented his meditative search for “quality” on his cross-country
trip. Aristotle thought humans have a natural drive for quality. It must
be our eternal quest. Think of the many TQM trainings of the ‘80s
and ‘90s. In our field of education—and more specifically, distance
education and e-learning—“quality” has been a consistent
theme of conferences organized by NUTN,
and WCET has been seeking the same holy
grail, especially in its work with accrediting agencies. Generating quality
is not a solipsistic venture. We are all working together to find common
definitions, to benchmark quality practices (again, see NUTN), and to use
benchmarking knowledge as a base for leadership and creativity.
At Hezel Associates we, too, are also pursuing quality in e-learning—not an ephemeral, feel-good quality—but a quality we define with our clients, conceptualize in strategic planning, and operationalize in the implementation, and measure with evaluation tools validated through practice.
Legislators and administrators still ask, though less frequently, “Is distance learning as good as traditional learning?” Of course, it’s the wrong question, in part because we’re not so sure about the quality of traditional teaching and learning. Historically we haven’t done a good job of assessing quality in the classroom or of holding institutions accountable for the money they collect in tuition and state funding.
Quality and accountability go hand in hand. If we are to seek quality, we’d better find ever better ways to define it, to operationalize it, to measure it, and to make improvements when quality where learning impact is not evident. How do you define and measure quality in your distance or e-learning program? We invite you to join us in a benchmarking activity. We will all be the richer for it.
Richard Hezel, PhD
President