Background: the survey
Context: Organisational structures
Problem: its nature and complexity
Policy: How institutions have responded
Principles: what needs to be done
96. This part of the report looks at policies and management structures that will encourage the timely development of good materials.
97. We have carried out a survey of practice in universities and colleges in both developing and industrialised countries. In many cases the information we have gathered is sensitive, either because of commercial confidentiality or because of continuing negotiations about staff terms of employment. For that reason, and in response to a commitment to those who have given us information, we do not identify any of them. This anonymous note records our gratitude to them all. The report also draws on information collected by IRFOL for other research activities.
98. As in the other enquiry our main focus is on developing-country institutions but with some glances at experience in industrialised countries. This survey also found similarities and differences: to take one example, northern universities do not always get work delivered on time but they get it in machine-readable format. Some developing-country universities have to assume that their authors will deliver hand-written text (see also para. 54-61 above).
99. We have gathered information mainly about the development of materials in print. Many of the findings are also relevant to computer-based teaching in various formats, though this is presenting some new complexities, which are referred to again at the end of the report.
100. Universities and colleges of many kinds are using open and distance learning. This almost always requires them to invest in the development of teaching materials which are then used and exploited by the university. This is a different kind of activity from conventional university teaching and one which changes some aspects of the relationship between an academic staff member and the university. The staff member is no longer a sole practitioner, with near-total control over teaching and writing, but one of a group of people where the university has an interest in controlling and exploiting their work.
101. Universities have developed various different structures for the management of open and distance learning. Three pairs of oppositions help in analysing these structures and drawing conclusions from their experience: between industrialised and developing countries, between single and dual-mode institutions, and between the use of internal and external writers.
102. First, the main difference between institutions in the north and the south is, of course, that the former are likely to be richer and to work in a richer environment. Universities in the north should find it easier to identify competent potential course writers from outside their own walls: in many countries in the south there is only a small number of available potential writers in many areas of university teaching. These difficulties are likely to be greater in small states. Life, for the manager of open and distance learning as for the rest of us, is easier if you are rich.
103. Second, as before (para. 2 and 3) we distinguish between the experience of single and dual-mode universities.
104. The third contrast is between the employment of writers who are internal to the organisation and those who are external. Practice here does not map on to the distinction between single or dual-mode. Some open universities employ mainly internal writers, some external. Some dual-mode institutions have taken the view that their off-campus teaching must match teaching on-campus as closely as possible, pressing them to use on-campus authors, others have found the pressures on their internal staff so great that they use external writers. Some have found a halfway house, employing postgraduate students as course writers and arranging for them to work under the close guidance of regular staff members. (See also para. 62-5 above).
105. Universities also differ in the location of responsibility and power and the extent to which this is centralised or decentralised. Responsibility may tend to rest with a central administration, or with deans of a relatively large faculty, or with heads of department. Senates may be large or small, strong or weak. Control of budgets may be centralised or decentralised. All these factors will affect the way in which those running open and distance learning can influence decision-making.
106. Many universities have set up centres with responsibility for the management of open and distance learning, under different titles. (For simplicity we have used the term 'flexible learning centre' in this report, even where we are reporting experience from a unit with a different title.) They vary in the extent to which they have educational as well as administrative responsibilities. In some cases a flexible learning centre plays an active role in the selection of courses to be offered through open and distance learning, provides educational advice on course development, manages student support services, and controls the budget for these activities. At the other extreme, some centres have purely administrative functions, acting mainly as reprographic and distribution centres. After years of argument, in which they urged that open and distance learning should become a mainstream activity, some, in industrialised countries, have now reached an apotheosis of abolition, with all responsibility for the renamed flexible learning being devolved to departments.
107. The change from conventional university teaching brings in its train changes in the way academic staff work. Historically there was a clear division between teaching, for which academic staff were rewarded by a regular salary, and writing which was either done as a research activity, with rewards from prestige and promotion, or under contract with a publisher, with reward from royalties. Intellectual property rested with the teacher not the university, and issues about it did not arise in relation to teaching. Respect for academic freedom meant that copyright in work produced by university staff rested unequivocally with the staff member. University television began to change this in British universities where universities, with heavy investment in equipment for teaching and in non-academic staff such as television producers, wanted to retain rights over teaching materials developed by their staff in a new medium. The development of open and distance learning aggravated the problem.
108. There are, then, conflicts of interest within universities. Universities, or departments or units within them, that are investing in the development of materials for open and distance learning, want to be assured of a return on their investment and so want some rights over materials that are produced within or for the institutions. Good materials development may bring its rewards in the long run but demands money up front. For their part, academic staff want to retain intellectual property both for academic reasons and because they may be able to exploit this through commercial channels. In dual-mode universities academic staff also have many other pressures on their time, from their on-campus students, from the need to research and publish, from demands that they undertake examining, consultancy and advice to governments. The needs of external students - perhaps future rather than actual external students - may bear heavily on a flexible learning centre but much less so on the individual staff member.
109. Furthermore, university management practices that are appropriate for conventional teaching do not necessarily fit the practice of open and distance learning. Where educational technologists work with authors, or teams of authors work together, it is no longer possible to identify unequivocally whose intellectual property needs to be recognised in a particular piece of teaching material. The measures used for assessing staff workload are no longer appropriate: you cannot easily translate measures in terms of contact hours into the amount of time needed to produce learning materials. Universities have made some progress in calculating staff norms for the production of materials, referred to below, but there is limited consistency about this. Inevitably norms will often be inappropriate or just wrong: some writers get paid far too little; some reach agreements that look over-generous.
How are authors paid?
What are they paid for?
What other rewards do they get?
How much are they paid?
Where do the funds come from?
How is the process managed?
110. Universities have developed a range of practices in rewarding authors. Their practice may be enshrined in standard agreements, often for outside authors, or in staff codes, usually for internal staff. They arrange how authors are paid, what they are paid for, what other benefits they receive, how much they are paid, where the funds come from, and how the process is managed.
111. Authors need to be rewarded. The reward may be in cash or in kind, and may go to them or to their department or employer.
112. Many authors are paid for writing teaching materials. External authors are normally paid, although there are sometimes constraints on this where the external author is a public servant whose scheme of service does not allow any additional payment from public funds. This is the case for both single and dual-mode universities. Some open universities rely mainly on internal, others on external writers. In some developing countries, for example, open universities have not wanted to build up large academic staffs, whom they would have to recruit in competition with conventional universities, and have therefore mainly relied on external, contracted, writers. These are often on the staff of conventional universities and expect to be paid a fee for work that is regarded as being done in their own time, over and above their regular job.
113. The position is more complicated for internal writers. Open universities do not generally pay their own regular, full-time, staff if they employ them as writers. Conflicting principles may be at work if we try to determine whether an internal writer in a dual-mode university should be paid. On the one hand, the labourer is worthy of his hire and authors may quite reasonably expect to be paid for work that is over and above what they are regularly required to do. On the other hand, a university may regard the writing of materials as something for which writers are already paid through their salary so that there should be no additional payment to them. If a university is moving towards bimodal status, but has not yet institutionalised this, it may agree pay authors who are members of its own staff. Where internal staff members agree to write course material, perhaps for a different department of the university and in their own time, they will generally expect to be paid a fee for doing so.
114. Where internal staff members in a dual-mode university are expected to write course materials, time has to be found for them to do so. Some dual-mode universities have developed formulae within their staff codes in which writing of materials is seen as part of their regular work along with other modes of teaching. Australian universities have generally adopted this approach. They may, for example, allow a reduction in contact hours to match an obligation to produce learning materials. For the rest, the need to release time means that funds need to be passed to a department in order to make this possible.
115. Several universities argue that there are advantages in making payment not to the individual but to the department. This involves the department formally in the development of teaching materials, which is likely to help in ensuring they are delivered on time. In some cases this has tax benefits: payment to an individual may attract tax at the highest relevant rate. It gives departments the opportunity to use income for purposes that appeal to staff members: for a conference or travel fund or to employ part-time staff. In some cases, too, payment to a department is made on the clear understanding that it will release the time of regular staff members for course development, leaving the department to buy in part-time staff to take over regular teaching duties.
116. Current practice is summarised in table 3.
117. As noted above, English copyright law and that of many common-law jurisdictions, means that university teachers retain the copyright in anything they write unless there is an agreement to the contrary. In order to be able to reproduce teaching material and distribute it to their own students or those of other institutions, universities, therefore need to draw up agreements with writers transferring ownership of some or all of their intellectual property.
118. Practice varies. At one extreme, one northern institution has a standard contract which buys all rights, including moral rights recognised in the relevant national copyright law, from its external authors. In other cases, authors are required to assign more limited rights. There are three main ways in which these have been limited. One university asks for rights for a fixed period of five years: this protects the reputation of the author if materials begin to look out of date at the end of this period. In other cases the university acquires simply the right to use material in open-learning format, leaving all other rights with the author. Some universities have acquired rights simply on behalf of their own students, barring eventual use by another institution without further payment.
119. The narrower the rights assigned, the more difficult it is for a university to make its materials available to other institutions should it want to do so.
120. Benefits in kind may be as important as those in cash. Where a university buys only limited rights in teaching material, it may be possible for them to benefit from other ways of exploiting it. One southern university, for example, is quite explicit that it acquires and retains rights to materials in open-learning format but allows its authors to rework these as textbooks which can be published conventionally, with royalties flowing to the author and not the university.
121. Internal authors usually want the work they do in open and distance learning to be recognised for tenure and promotion. Three kinds of policy have been reported. First, teaching is in some cases explicitly recognised, along with research (and sometimes other activities such as administration or service to the community) as one factor to be recognised in considering tenure or promotion. Some universities have gone on to argue that the production of good teaching materials is a teaching activity, to be considered alongside other evidence of good teaching. To make this work, the principle needs to be clearly spelt out and actually used by the relevant promotion board: one university reports scepticism among academic staff as to whether due notice is taken in practice as opposed to theory. There is one further difficulty here. Where a team of authors has developed material or there has been a major input by an editor or educational technologist, it may be difficult to identify the contribution made by a particular staff member.
Table 3: Rewards to authors in four contexts
|
|
Single-mode |
Dual-mode |
|
Internal authors |
Authors usually not paid Most or all rights usually to university |
Authors sometimes paid, but writing may be regarded as part of regular duties. |
|
Authors recognised for writing in promotion |
Payment may be to author, or to department. |
|
|
Progress chasing most effective where department is committed |
Most rights usually to university but authors may retain some rights to exploit materials. |
|
|
Authorship often recognised for promotion either as teaching or as textbook publication or (less often) as research activity |
||
|
Progress chasing most effective where department is committed |
||
|
External authors |
Authors usually paid |
Authors usually paid |
|
Most or all rights usually to university |
Most or all rights usually to university |
|
|
Authors may gain public recognition and prestige |
Authors may gain public recognition and prestige |
|
|
Progress chasing reflects payment on delivery |
Progress chasing reflects payment on delivery |
122. The second approach recognises that many schemes for academic promotion put greater emphasis on research than on teaching. In response to this, some universities have agreed that writing course materials should be treated in the same way as writing a textbook, with academic staff gaining similar credit for the two activities.
123. Third, some authors have argued that the writing of course materials should be treated as being analogous to the writing of research papers. Universities have sometimes been willing to accept this argument, partly to encourage staff to launch into open and distance learning, but the previous two approaches are more usual.
124. Questions of promotion or tenure do not arise for external authors. In some cases their recognition as writers for an open university is claimed as giving prestige. It is probably in everyone's interest for an open university to seek the best authors and for the latter to demonstrate their prestige and its wisdom by proclaiming the fact.
125. Authors may be paid a lump sum or a royalty. Institutions generally prefer the former but royalties have been used. In some cases, royalties have been paid for the development of a course book, or book of readings, that may appeal to a wider market then the registered students. Some authors, with highly specialist skills and a high reputation, have been able to negotiate a royalty payment rather than a lump sum despite the general policy of the institution for which they are working, most often for the development of a book of readings, or where the writer has a unique skill and reputation.
126. Three approaches have been used in determining the level of payment to authors. The first is to estimate the length of time it would take a staff member to develop a given quantity of material and then compute a course writing fee according to, say, the mid-point on the relevant salary scale. Alternatively, second, some institutions have looked at the other possible sources of income for a potential course writer and sought to find a point of comparison with, for example, examination marking or work on curriculum development in order to calculate a writing fee.
127. A number of Australian universities have followed a third approach. Australian practice is to make no distinction between on and off-campus students, so that resources are allocated in terms of full-time equivalent students regardless of the mode of study. Their staff codes require academic staff to be responsible for teaching a number of student units a year. They may do this by conventional face-to-face teaching or by preparing open-learning materials. In the latter case, staff do not receive additional payment for this work. It is assumed that the extra work required in the first year in which materials are developed is compensated for by a reduction in hours spent on teaching in subsequent years. (One consequence of this policy is that costs per student are very similar for full-time equivalent students regardless of their mode of study. As part-time study usually has higher dropout rates than full time, costs per graduate are likely to be higher.)
128. A number of universities using the first of these approaches have developed formulae for the allocation of staff time to course writing. While the actual amount paid to course writers varies widely, reflecting local salary levels, there is some common ground in terms of the amount of writing time to be allowed for in relation to the number of learning hours which the student will devote to learning a particular amount of material. Universities have generally reported that they assume the ratio between writing time and studying time will vary between 3:1 and 10:1; in other words that it will take between three and ten hours to develop teaching materials that will require one hour's work from the student. While values tend to cluster at the lower figure, many institutions report that they would like to increase rates of payment and that these ratios are in practice exceeded so that their authors are underpaid. (A previous review of six institutions found figures of the same order, with allowances of about 300 hours to produce 120 learning hours of material but also noted that many authors in fact devoted more time to course writing 1) There are, of course, marked differences in the time needed to develop self-standing materials from that for materials that are wrapped round an existing text: where authors are expected to produce one hour Of learning materials in three hours of work they are usually writing learning guides with much of the content in existing texts. These figures are for the development of print materials: other media tend to require longer preparation time.
1 Reported in a University of the West Indies internal policy paper in 1994 (BDE P4 1993/94)
129. Several institutions also reported on the investment needed in editing, reviewing, copy-editing and preparing materials for desktop publishing. Generally these costs can be expected roughly to double the costs of the initial writing. While the lines between editing and preparation of text for desk-top publishing are becoming blurred, it is likely that the costs of employing an editor who brings educational and presentational skills to the development of teaching material will cost at least half as much as the original writing, and figures as high as two-thirds are reported.
The work of external course writers is often likely to demand more work from an instructional designer than that of internal writers.
130. Both industrialised and developing-country experience have shown that open and distance learning can have lower unit costs, in terms of students or graduates, than conventional education. But the development of new course materials often presents major funding problems to university bursars. While economies may be achieved over the life of a course, each new course demands investment in advance of student fees being available. The costs of teaching face-to-face are met, from regular budgets, on a single-year basis. In contrast, the costs of preparing teaching material, to be used over a number of years, need to be met in one year but may then have to be attributed to a number of years. Universities therefore need mechanisms that allow them to regard recurrent staffing costs as if they were an investment cost. The need for funding up-front is often a major constraint on course development and the costing issues have proved a particular difficulty for universities that are moving from single to dual-mode.
131. Most course development has been funded from universities' regular, recurrent, budgets. External agencies have sometimes provided funds: for exemplary projects, or to meet a particular and well-defined need for training. These are, however, exceptions and funding agencies, such as the development banks, have rarely been willing to treat investment in course materials as capital expenditure for which they will accept responsibility.
132. In some cases external funds have been available for the development of teaching material, always with strings attached. These have sometimes accelerated the process of course development: where funds have to be used within a given period, and products delivered to a funding agency, managers hopeful of more funding from the same source will press hard for timely completion. Industrialised countries have increasingly used central funds, for which institutions must bid, as a way of influencing policy. The centrally administered Staff Development Grants (CUTSD) in Australia and Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP) in Britain have made funds available for the development of teaching materials, especially in computer-based formats. One university reports that the quality of its materials was raised when it was contracted to produce them by a central agency and knew that they would be on view alongside those of other universities in the same country. In another case, central policy required that materials developed with funds, awarded in response to a bid, should be available free of charge to all universities within the national system. This is reported as discouraging some academic staff from writing materials which they hoped to exploit outside their own institution.
133. The prompt delivery of materials is not solely a matter of rewarding authors. Partly it is a function of time and experience: many institutions launching programmes of open and distance learning, and many authors before they begin to write, are over-optimistic about the time needed to develop materials. At the other extreme, some well-established institutions have developed a ponderous system that inhibits rapid production. While unrealistic timetables will not work, generous lead-times do not automatically ensure people will deliver on time.
134. Various strategies are used. Where dual-mode universities have persuaded departments to give active support to the development of materials, the department may feel a responsibility to ensure deadlines are met. There are examples of departments which have accepted the responsibility for progress chasing and themselves replaced a slow course writer. One university, for example, has arranged for course fees for external degrees to be shared between the flexible learning centre and the relevant academic department, outside the university's regular financial structure. In this case the departmental pressure to deliver is heavy.
135. Generally, one member of a team working on course development will have responsibility for progress chasing. Often this falls to a staff member of a flexible learning department. Sanctions are then likely to be a matter for negotiation with the relevant department and their effectiveness to be a function of the location of authority within the university. Where external writers are employed, the university may be in a stronger position to press for prompt delivery; one institution, for example, identifies part of the writing fee as a bonus for early delivery.
136. These strategies have only a limited record of success. Developing-country institutions, regardless of their structure, report difficulties in getting materials delivered on time. In the north, the structures that appear to have had the best record of success are those adopted by single-mode institutions using internal authors, where there is no conflict between the demands of on and off-campus students, and by institutions of various kinds which are in a position to pick and choose external writers recruited from a deep pool of expertise.
137. The varied practice of universities, and the need to respect their autonomy, set limits to the value of any recommendations from current practice. Five conclusions follow from this analysis.
138. First, open and distance learning is often perceived as a second-class form of education. To avoid this in a dual-mode institution demands, in the words of one vice-chancellor, 'an unequivocal acceptance by the schools that their responsibility for external teaching is every bit as important as their responsibility for internal teaching'. Dedicated open universities are under pressure to ensure that their academic work matches in quality that of the best conventional practice. Dual-mode institutions need to ensure that they do not make their best teaching available only to students in one mode. Quality depends on departmental commitments as well as on the service provided by a flexible learning centre.
139. Second, there is no simple solution to the problems that follow from the competing pressures upon the time of academic staff. If a university is becoming dual-mode, and its staff cannot find the time to develop teaching materials, two options are open to it: the university can contract out the writing of materials or it can seek to buy in materials, perhaps through co-operation with other institutions. Either of these approaches may seem threatening and undesirable. Both are likely to imply that it sees its responsibility for the teaching of external students differently from that for internal students.
140. The third conclusion is consistent with the spirit of these two. The more successful approaches to rewarding course writers, and getting materials delivered on time, seem to be those where a staff member's department accepts responsibility for the work of developing materials, so that the regular departmental processes can be used to share out work and ensure that it is done. Financial arrangements that ensure benefits from the enrolment of off-campus students flow to departments have proved to be useful here.
141. Fourth, in considering intellectual property it is useful to separate issues of academic reputation from financial issues. University staff properly need to protect their reputation. They need to be able to ensure that what they have written is not distorted, and that they have an opportunity to change material that has become out of date. They may have an interest in how material is used: ethical considerations may be involved in the use of teaching materials in medicine, for example. These issues are of the essence of university teaching. Questions about how academic staff should be rewarded for their work are separate, different and perhaps easier. It may be helpful to consider first what arrangements are needed to protect academic reputation and then, second, how authors should be rewarded.
142. Fifth, most of the experience so far has come from the development of print materials. The development of computer-based learning materials is more likely to complicate the problem than solve it. Copyright on materials in machine-readable format is difficult to control. Costs are likely to be higher. There may be a greater reliance on material, such as generic software, developed outside the institution; some of this material may prove relatively costly. The time involved in developing materials is likely to be greater, with the possible consequence that materials will be developed only by enthusiasts with considerable skills in information technology.
The International Research Foundation for Open Learning (IRFOL) is a project of the Institute of Community Studies, registered charity no. 210622. IRFOL's function is to carry out research on open and distance learning for both policy-makers and practitioners.
For more information contact: IRFOL, 12 Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 1PF Phone 01223 364721 Fax 01223 355207 Email H.D.Perraton@open.ac.uk.
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