GENERAL OVERVIEW

The E-learning E-volution in Colleges and Universities: A Pan-Canadian Challenge , a report released on February 8, 2001 by the Advisory Committee for Online Learning, sets out an action plan urging governments, universities, colleges and, businesses to accelerate and coordinate efforts to offer Canadians online postsecondary education.
The guiding vision for the action plan is the establishment of a Pan-Canadian Online Learning Service. This service, for which government would provide the seed money, would offer a suite of facilities, services and infrastructure to support a wide array of online learning initiatives involving publicly funded Canadian postsecondary institutions, their learners and their faculty members by 2005 (see report, page 17).

In establishing its recommendations, the three key preoccupations guiding the advisory
committee were as follows:

1. the need to foster a culture of lifelong learning;
2. the need to harness the transformative power of information and communication
   technologies to improve accessibility; and
3. the need to ensure that postsecondary institutions and the learnware industry can
   secure the benefits and avoid the pitfalls of online learning
   (see report, page 2).

The advisory committee seeks to use online learning to:

• enhance the quality of the postsecondary learning experience;
• improve the accessibility and the flexibility of this learning; and
• create synergies and critical mass for online learning development, deployment and consumption (see report, page 20).

Although the cost of the committee's recommendations will be significant, no specific recommendations on the amount of money required to finance the vision by 2005 were provided in the report. 

In an interview with the Globe and Mail, David Johnston said "We didn't put a figure on it at this stage, because we are looking for a contribution from all levels of government. But we are looking for a very substantial investment - we're looking for increased operating revenues for things such as faculty release time [to work on on-line learning initiatives], for research, for technical support and for hardware and software ."

In identifying the need for increased faculty release time to successfully engage in e-learning, the report recognizes "the provision of such release time will commit institutions to very sizable expenditures they can ill afford ­ especially at a time of swelling enrolment when faculty members from the baby boom are reaching retirement age " (see report, page 8). 

The report also acknowledges that while funding of R&D in online learning is critical, it requires an investment of new money that provides substantial and long-term funding. To this end, the report notes: "After a decade of restraint, and at a time of rising enrolment and growing competition for qualified faculty and staff, institutions cannot undertake this effort at the expense of their other vital duties. Nor should the funding come from a re-allocation of existing funds available for research and development in other areas, given that the level of research and development in Canada is well below that of most of major industrialized trading partners " (report, page 12).

1. establish an integrated strategic planning process for online learning (Recommendation 3.2, page 48);
2. commit themselves to systematically supporting the development of online modules, courses and programs in order to provide learners with a high-quality online learning experience that meets their needs (Recommendation 4.1, page 50);
3. support systematically faculty involvement in online learning to ensure greater use of online learning by faculty members (Recommendation 4.2, page 51);
4. have in place intellectual property policies for online learning that are characterized by clarity, consistency and fairness (Recommendation 4.14, page 66);
5. establish as a goal the construction of a robust network infrastructure with high-speed connectivity to make online learning accessible to learners (Recommendation 5.2, page 72);
6. provide a full-range of technical and other supports to learners to ensure that they can take full advantage of online learning opportunities (Recommendation 5.7, page 76);
7. work collectively and individually to expand user-friendly inventories of accredited online courses and related information (Recommendation 6.6, page 92); and
8. be encouraged to adopt interoperable operating protocols, systems and facilities to support online courses and programs; and high standards with respect to the scalability and adaptability of the technology supporting online courses and programs (Recommendation 6.8, page 93).

Other broader recommendations listed in the report which will have impact on higher
education institutions include the need for:

1. improved collaboration between all levels of government and higher education institutions to accelerate the use of online learning by faculty, learners and the private sector in the implementation of online learning (Recommendation 3.1, page 44);
2. governments to work together to provide substantial funding to stimulate new and renew existing material (Recommendation 4.3, page 54);
3. the private sector, postsecondary institutions and governments to invest in the establishment and expansion of education programs to teach and foster the required e-learning skills in the Canadian labor force (Recommendation 4.4, page 54);
4. the federal government to provide additional resources to the existing granting councils (SSHRC, NSERC and CIHR) to facilitate research, contingent on the creation of a central, tri-council coordination committee to oversee this research or to create a fourth granting council or a separate program to facilitate this research at
   arm's length from government (Recommendation 4.7, page 61);
5. postsecondary institutions, the private sector and governments to ensure that all hardware, software, systems, online courses and learning tools used in online learning are designed so that they meet the varied needs of persons with disabilities (Recommendation 5.8, page 76);
6. institutions to arrange credit transfers and make learning truly portable across the country by reaching a) agreements among the postsecondary institutions within each province/territory; and b) agreements among provincial and territorial governments atthe pan-Canadian level (Recommendation 5.9, page 78);
7. the Pan-Canadian Online Learning Service to work with participating institutions and provincial/territorial authorities to develop and agree on methods for assessing the quality of pedagogy and technologies used in online learning, with a view ultimately to developing a code of good practice for online learning (Recommendation 6.7, page 93);
8. the creation of a comprehensive source of information on all Canadian online learning resources;
9. more research regarding learning, both traditional and online.

• more research into traditional and online learning;
• improved student aid to ensure that learning opportunities are increasingly affordable and accessible;
• the revision of copyright laws to facilitate the development of online learning;
• the adoption of intellectual property management policies related to online learning that are clear and internally consistent with each university's respective overall IP management practice; and
• increased federal and provincial/territorial cooperation in the funding of online learning.

AUCC further applauds the advisory committee's recommendation that provincial / territorial and federal governments should reaffirm the fundamental importance of postsecondary institutions by augmenting their respective investments in education.

To this end, AUCC is pleased that the advisory committee has highlighted the need for new, substantial and long-term funding to achieve the vision for online learning and life-long learning set out in the report.
As the report acknowledges, while universities and degree-granting colleges clearly recognize the importance of online learning, they are facing an extremely challenging period in their history as they confront the simultaneous reality of a 20% growth in their student enrolment and the need to renew the ranks of their faculty by 30,000 professors nationally by 2010.

AUCC thus supports the report's emphasis on increased collaboration among the federal and provincial / territorial governments in addressing the challenges that must be surmounted to maintain and enhance the role of institutions of higher education as key drivers of the knowledge based economy.