INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL FOR OPEN AND DISTANCE EDUCATION
Member expectations and progress towards key objectives The ICDE strategic plan for 2009-2012 provides the basis for the organization’s activities. It was compiled after consultation with members, and comment and endorsement was invited both from the 2009 ICDE Standing Conference of Presidents (SCOP), and online.
Policy ICDE’s first objective is to be a global arena for the discussion of distance education policies. However, it is clear that member expectations go significantly beyond this. There is an expectation that ICDE will engage in activity to influence national governments’ and international bodies’ attitudes to distance education. The message is clear: ICDE is expected to lead a campaign for advocacy for open and distance education as a public good. ICDE has limited internal resources, though there is significant competence for carrying out this work within the membership. ICDE’s role should therefore be actively to draw on this knowledge and capacity to work for the common good of its global membership. Resources The ICDE membership recognizes the need to gain an overview of available resources and the need for a solid plan to capitalize on available strengths. Individual institutions have acknowledged their willingness to provide resources for these initiatives. A key demonstration of the willingness to engage comes from the Policy Forum held at SCOP 2010, where considerable support was given by Narend Baijnath at the University of South Africa and Nicholas H. Allen from University of Maryland University College, USA. Advocacy The input provided by Bernard Loing to the 2010 Policy Forum underlined the need to regain support from UNESCO for the role of open and distance education in achieving education for all. ICDE will continue to lobby UNESCO and can point to participation of the
Progress Report June 2011
The Declaration published after the SCOP meeting in 2009, the Report on the Policy Forum and Working Group Reports from SCOP 2010, together with an online survey, have helped further to inform ICDE’s work. Here, ICDE presents a response to specific member expectations as expressed through these forums, and an overview of progress towards the completion of activities foreseen in the strategic plan.
ICDE President in the recent UNESCO Ratings Forum. At an operational level, ICDE-UNESCO cooperation in the Open Educational Quality Initiative has helped to increase ICDE’s visibility in key sections of UNESCO and to create a better understanding of how the Secretariat can cooperate with this organization. The need for national governments to see open and distance education as an integral part of the education system and a viable complement to face-to-face tuition is clear. Differences between national and regional contexts make it a priority for the project for the identification of regulatory frameworks to be extended further. Work to identify traditional establishments receptive to greater acceptance of open and distance education, as has been suggested, lies beyond the scope of the current strategic plan. ICDE has, and will continue to use the considerable impact of its news services to disperse reports and articles relating to the political status of distance education. This includes a dedicated
Arguments The project for the development of global statistics on open and distance education to begin in 2011 will provide facts and figures as the basis for advocacy. ICDE’s work on quality described overleaf will also provide strong arguments. Material demonstrating the efficacy of open and distance education available through every ICDE member institution will be collected over the next six months, and formed into documentation for use at the policy level. It is clear for example that open and distance education increases participation and improves access to quality teacher training to meet the considerable demand for qualified teachers, particularly in developing contexts. It will be important to provide a human face for many of these arguments and thus to involve graduates, corporate beneficiaries and prominent personalities. Task Force The next stage for ICDE must be to form and activate a task force to create a strategy for and secure funding for a sustained advocacy programme to be launched in 2012. This will include a high level policy meeting targeted at decision makers at national level. Ministers will also be targeted at their natural meeting places including UNESCO events, the Commonwealth Ministers’ conference and the SEAMEO Ministers’ of Education meeting. The first steps towards the creation of this task force will be taken at the 24th ICDE World Conference.
Progress towards activities described in the strategic plan Planning
Advanced planning
Ongoing
Final stages
Completed
Project on the Regulatory Framework of Distance Education Publication of articles on policy issues Project on developing distance education statistics Task force to explore increased exchange between regions on ODE policy Organization of a Policy Forum Meetings with national policy makers to report on policy findings and promote distance education
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policy section, and exposure for papers and presentations from the 2010 Policy Forum.
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Quality The ICDE membership expects the organization to embrace a global remit to define quality standards to give weight to the assertion that open and distance education is a form of education on a par with the traditional face-to-face mode. Solutions must also be found for those regions of the world which do not have a reliable form of quality assurance applicable to their situation.
International standards ICDE has been called upon to develop international standards for quality assurance, and to tackle the issue of cross-border accreditation. While a task force to explore and describe criteria for excellence and accreditation strategies was foreseen by the strategic plan, the SCOP meetings in Shanghai, Barcelona and Pretoria, and the Policy Forum in Pretoria have provided significant member input to the planning of this task. The 2011 Policy Forum will also make quality recommendations. A Request for Proposal is currently under preparation which envisages the engagement of an independent specialist to map the quality situation and to present the ICDE Executive with concrete proposals for ICDE’s work in this sphere. These should take into account ongoing initiatives, the diversity of the organization, and the organization’s resources and political situation, particularly in terms of its formal consultative relations with UNESCO and the support given by the Government of Norway. This report is expected to be completed
by the end of 2011, allowing ICDE to work towards the creation of a template for defining quality allowing for institutional comparisons across international and regional boundaries. ICDE will then be able to align its work with that of the key national and international quality agencies and work with them to make their approach more inclusive of distance education.
Institutional quality A framework for quality reviews of the student learning experience has been developed as a new service for member institutions. These are designed to support institutions in their ambitions to enhance quality in student support, and in their developmental work. The proposal is thus not accreditation but assessment of quality, the opportunity to learn from others and to implement best practice. Quality reviews encourage institutions to improve student support, while also providing students, employers and others with ready access to reliable and meaningful public information about the level of quality. Members have asked ICDE to provide exposure and forums for the sharing of internal innovation, and information campaigns. This is achieved through ICDE’s conferences – particularly the 24th ICDE World Conference on new approaches to open and distance education, but also through the work to collect best practices described in the following section.
The Open Educational Quality (OPAL) Initiative highlights best practice in the integration of open educational resources, and provides an environment for peer review of practices. The recently announced OPAL Awards create incentives for faculty to promote innovation within teaching, as well as recognizing excellence at the institutional and policy levels. While this initiative extends to learners, ICDE does not currently see a role for itself in directly supporting learners through providing guides and materials for this group. It has been suggested that ICDE should work actively to promote and provide opportunities for funding of open and distance education projects. While ICDE will continue to provide exposure for best practice examples and offer the opportunity for quality reviews, it is not within the organization’s remit to play an active role in internal institutional strategy. ICDE has the ability to fund limited research initiatives originating from ICDE’s strategy and will work to obtain further external funding for specific initiatives.
Progress towards activities described in the strategic plan Planning
Advanced planning
Ongoing
Final stages
Completed
Online listing of major quality initiatives Online listing of major distance education journals Promoting open educational practices and steps taken by institutions to improve quality and innovation Quality reviews of the student learning experience at member institutions Task force to explore and describe criteria for excellence and accreditation strategies Developing a template for defining and comparing quality in distance education institutions
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Development ICDE has committed to pursue three specific outcomes in relation to methodologies and technologies; increasing awareness of the digital divide, finding solutions for developing countries, and the communication of information about emerging technologies.
The digital divide The 2010 ICDE Standing Conference of Presidents held in South Africa provided a starting point for this area of ICDE’s activity. Priorities expressed at the meeting included improving access for disadvantaged sections of society, the use of mobile phone technology for learning, the alignment of technology to pedagogical and contextual appropriateness, sharing of materials and curricula including open educational resources, and techniques for driving down the cost of technology. These will form the background for an ICDE sponsored project for the identification of key aspects of the digital divide to be announced in late 2011. The results of the 2009 UNESCO World Conference
International marketing campaign for distance education In ICDE’s strategic plan, the organization announced its intention to support increased understanding of the values and possibilities of distance education as an instrument for lifelong learning. Members have subsequently reiterated their wish for ICDE to promote increased awareness of the contribution that open and distance education can make to national and international development goals. ICDE will now collaborate with Marie Ferreira, Executive Director: Communication and Marketing at the University of South Africa on an international communication and marketing campaign to promote distance education. As the first
on Higher Education and the recent ICDE International Conference on quality, equity and access to higher education will also inform this work.
It is currently unrealistic for ICDE to develop its own OER portal or to fund
Open educational resources
OER development directly as has been
The ICDE membership has asked ICDE to facilitate development of open educational resources (OER) to create economies of scale, while simultaneously promoting access to OER. The ICDE Task Force on OER reported its findings in late 2008, and the organization has committed itself to revisiting its recommendations. During 2010, a number of key international initiatives were begun including the UNESCO-Commonwealth of Learning “Taking OER beyond the OER Community” initiative and the Open Educational Quality Initiative described previously. OER will also be a major theme at the 24th ICDE World Conference. ICDE will take the results of these activities as the basis for detailed planning of strategy for promoting OER internationally, also seeking unnecessary overlap with UNESCO, COL and World Bank
suggested, due to limited capacity and funding.
Best practice A key wish expressed by members is exposure for best practices. This is a central element of the Open Educational Quality Initiative, while the call for success stories recently announced on the ICDE website is the first stage in collecting a database of activities which demonstrate the successful employment of open and distance education. These will later be collected into a published anthology. A new strategy for the online journal Open Praxis will provide a conduit for academic articles on best practice from 2012, while an online repository for existing research in open and distance education is also under planning for that year.
Progress towards activities described in the strategic plan Planning Advanced Ongoing planning
Final Completed stages
Project for the identification of key aspects of the digital divide and steps towards overcoming the divide The enhancement of OER in an international setting following recommendations of the ICDE OER Task Force Exposure for key achievements in the field of open and distance education Online literature depository on open and distance learning Development of Open Praxis
stage of this work, a survey has been distributed to establish the current status of members’ communication and marketing activities to promote distance education. The findings will enable ICDE to build an international campaign, including online tools and examples of best practice which may be adapted for local use. An information gathering and exchange
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initiatives. This work will take place in late 2011 and early 2012.
session is also planned for the 24th ICDE World Conference in Bali, Indonesia. This work will also lead to the creation of a network for the promotion of open and distance education between the communication and marketing departments of member institutions.
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Cooperation It is ICDE’s role as a global membership network to foster inter-institutional and inter-regional cooperation particularly between the northern and southern hemispheres. ICDE should work to provide a clear picture of the broad cooperational aims of its membership while simultaneously providing the arenas and pre-conditions for such cooperation to take place. It is the role of individual institutions to grasp these opportunities where they are in line with locally defined priorities.
Capacity analysis Through its website, ICDE has made good progress towards mapping the major global actors in distance education – both institutions and associations. The embracing of regional associations as associate members brings clarity to ICDE’s relationship with regional interest groups, and strengthens the prerequisites for inter-regional collaboration. From 2011, ICDE will gather data on members’ interests, priorities and capacity for cooperation. ICDE will also work to build special interest networks, beginning with marketing and communications professionals as described previously. The organization’s adoption of a membership relationship management tool will assist this work.
Arenas for cooperation ICDE has traditionally emphasized its conferences and meetings as key
arenas for cooperation. These continue to be the major activity of the organization, but there is an expectation to increase both the quality and number of events. ICDE is working to create improved structures for the planning and realization of meetings and conferences, has introduced the new Policy Forum concept, and will work harder to encourage the organization of ICDE International Conferences to provide regional focal points for networking and knowledge exchange.
collaborative training projects and the sharing of programmes.
ICDE has also begun to find outlets for global perspectives on distance education at third-party conferences. Those organized by ICDE members and offering access to a significant regional audience will be prioritized.
ICDE internal priorities
New, more inclusive arenas for cooperation must now also be built, and a focus in 2011-2012 will be placed on online forums and interactive seminars.
Specific areas of cooperation ICDE is well placed to collect examples of best practice in cooperation for others to learn from, and invites submissions to its collection of success stories described above. ICDE will also help members to find partners for specific projects including regional teacher training consortia, faculty and student exchange,
While not highlighted as specific areas of interest by members, two areas of cooperation will remain high on the ICDE agenda, due to the specific needs of the organization. ICDE must continually reach out to new members worldwide, both for the continual renewal of the lifeblood of the organization, to provide the organization with greater political weight and an increased international mandate, and to increase membership income. Finally, a condition of the annual grant provided by the Government of Norway is the provision of key learning opportunities for the Norwegian distance education community, and it is important that ICDE increases its activity in this sphere.
Progress towards activities described in the strategic plan* Planning
Advanced planning
Ongoing
Final stages
Completed
SCOP meetings World conferences Development of website functionality Exposure for regional and national associations and major institutions within distance education Opportunities for online interaction between members Dialogue with and exposure for work with UNESCO Membership campaigns Key learning opportunities for institutions from the ICDE host nation (Norway) Development of new arenas for ICDE meetings Online seminars Increased emphasis on ICDE International Conferences organized on a regional basis
* The majority of these activities are in a natural ongoing state
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