Introduction
This article discusses ongoing cultural challenges faced by distance education providers seeking to deliver programs of study transnationally. Focusing on a key period of distance education during the late twentieth century, this discussion begins by tracing the impact of global economic and technological developments, such as the growth of mega-university enrolments, privately owned education providers and the Internet. The 1990s saw intense interest in the use of Internet-based applications for distance learning and the subsequent arrival of important new actors in this marketplace, such as Blackboard and WebCT.
The author then examines some of the key cultural challenges arising from this convergence of economic, educational and technological dimensions of globalisation, such as the problematic use of models of independent learning in distance delivery.
Turning to future trends, three recent developments in the Internet pose significant challenges to these markets and approaches: open courseware and other initiatives seeking to provide open access to educational resources; the diffusion of user-generated applications, tools and environments; and the fragmentation of online information sources. These trends invite education providers to reflect on the cultural dimensions of distance education. It is argued that while new approaches to e-learning present new opportunities to enhance distance learning, certain key lessons from the 1990s should continue to inform the contemporary development of distance education.
background
The 1990s was a period of tremendous growth internationally in distance education, evident in the expansion of mega-universities, virtual campuses and Open University courses throughout the world. Distance education involves "the provision of programs of study which provide both content and support services to students who rarely, if ever, attend for face-to-face teaching or for on-campus access to educational facilities" (Cunningham et al., 1998, p. 23). Designed to appeal to students seeking greater choice in relation to the time and place of study, and to the mode and pace of learning, these programs tend to be taken by students who find on-campus attendance impractical due to factors such as geography, work and family commitments (Ryan, 1998). Open learning frameworks further allow students to enrol in off campus programs of study irrespective of their previous credentials (Cunningham et al., 1998).
Mega-universities were established throughout Asia in response to the new commercial realities of globalisation. At the time, a mega-university such as Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University of Thailand attracted around 250,000 students, while Indonesia's Universitas Terbuka had more than 350,000 enrolments. Other mega-universities in India, Korea and China had equally massive enrolments (International Centre for Distance Learning, 1995).
By the mid 90s, more than 2 million students from the Asia-Pacific region were enrolled in informal and formal distance education programs (Commonwealth of Learning, 1994; Latchem, 1997). Public universities across South East Asia were encouraged to develop distance education programs as a low-cost basis for mass education. Universiti Sains Malaysia and Hanoi Open University expanded their distance education programs, targeting potential students among working adults and those residing in more remote regions (Ziguras, 2000). Privately owned education providers withinAsia also responded to the market potential of distance learning. Malaysia's first virtual university, Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (UNITAR), opened in 1999 and used technologies such as the Internet to teach students exclusively by distance mode (Ziguras, 2001).
UNITAR was one of a number of virtual universities seeking to exploit changing markets in distance learning. Institutions such as The University of Phoenix and Western Governors University were already providing distance education in North America. The first Web-based university courses emerged around 1995 (Bates, 2005). Like UNITAR, Western Governors University operates without a conventional home campus (Gilbert, 1996). While The University of Phoenix developed a flexible distance program for working adults, Western Governors University-a nonprofit online provider-sought to "expand the marketplace for instructional materials, courseware, and programs utilising advanced technology," as well as "identify and remove barriers to the free functioning of these markets" (Noble, 1998, p. 361). With the growth in distance education in regions such as Asia, many Western education institutions saw an opportunity to capture potentially lucrative global education markets. Growth in the number courses offered via distance mode during this decade was significant. In 1997, 1,000 institutions throughout the world offered roughly 33,000 distance education courses and programs, a tenfold increase since 1991 (Latchem, 1997).
The latter 1990s was a watershed period of technological diffusion; namely, of the Internet. Important new actors, such as Blackboard and WebCT, entered the global education marketplace late in the decade and soon dominated the market for global provision of learning management services and systems. By 2001, WebCT had sold over 1 million student licences across 80 countries (Bates, 2005). During this period of uneven development, many transnational distance education providers struggled to effectively deliver educational courses and content within this confluence of market growth and changing technology.
cultural challenges of distance education
Demand for distance education provided a powerful incentive for higher education, professional development and training providers to collaborate with commercial software developers to create Learning Management Systems (LMS) capable of efficient, low-cost delivery of course content and educational resources. Much of the early e-learning software was developed through these collaborations and then sold to other universities. LMS, such as WebCT, were developed during the latter 1990s to enable easier access to course materials, teaching tools and learning objects via Web-browsers. Designed to standardise online course development and simplify technological training and support at the deliverer's end, these systems came to dominate online provision in this education sector.
One of the major appeals of e-learning is the capacity of the Internet to enable geographically dispersed students to engage with their "virtual" classmates as part of an online community of independent learners. An important motivation for distance learning was the strategic interest of educational providers in using new technologies to grow student numbers and facilitate greater economies of scale in course-delivery. Reliant on Western content, many online providers failed to take into consideration the cultural dimensions of transnational delivery (Ziguras, 2000; 2001). The "one-size fits all" model underpinning transnational delivery presumed that Western standards, content and modes of delivery were "universally relevant and universally welcome" across different cultural settings (Patrick, 1997, p. 2).
During the 1990s, influential e-learning frameworks and software were developed in the English language (mainly in North America), and adopted Western models of learning. These were then used in other cultural settings without sufficient consideration of their appropriateness to the pedagogical and learning needs within those settings. To make distance courses simpler to use and more marketable for transnational delivery, distance courses were globalised to remove any cultural specificity of content. Seeking to provide curriculum and materials which "transcend local cultural and language barriers" and that are "relevant to learners wherever they happen to reside," many online courses were offered internationally but not modified to suit local sites of delivery (Bates & de los Santos, 1997, p. 49).
When delivering distance courses across different cultural settings, the models of independent learning underpinning distance education were in some instances problematic and in others, disastrous. During the 1980s, for example, Indonesia's Universitas Terbuka adopted a model of distance education based on the UK Open University. The Western approach to independent, self-directed learning that underpinned this model was unfamiliar to students and teachers from heteronymous Indonesian cultural backgrounds. Courses used text-based resources, which in an orally-based society characterised by low levels of reading and writing further contributed to the failure of this model (Dunbar, 1991).
The University of the South Pacific (USP) experienced similar problems when it adopted a distance education program. The program delivered resources to over 5,000 students spread across numerous islands, languages and cultures. The cultural backgrounds of this diverse group of learners were not taken into sufficient consideration in the course design. Like Universitas Terbuka, the program's emphasis on independent learning and use of the English language was unsuitable to Pacific peoples accustomed to learning from one another through physical interaction, observation and imitation, and through intimate relationships with their teachers (Thaman, 1997).
These examples highlight the kinds of cultural challenges associated with the globalisation of distance education; particularly the need to understand how the pedagogical and learning assumptions of a given distance framework impact upon different cultural settings. Courses via distance mode typically assume that students are self-motivated, self-directed learners (Cunningham et al., 1998), which may not be favourable to students (or teachers) from diverse cultural and educational backgrounds.
The cultural problems of the USP and Indonesian examples described above can, in part, be attributed to the dangers of a "quick fix" approach. Due to the somewhat ad hoc approach adopted by providers, implementation of technologically-assisted open and distance learning during the 1980s and 1990s was marred by a lack of coordination or pooling of educational experience (Walker, 1997). While understanding of the pedagogical and cultural dimensions of e-learning in distance education improved significantly during the 1990s—particularly in areas that directly mediate learning, such as instructional design (Alexander & Blight, 1996; Henderson, 1994) and transnational delivery (Ziguras & Rizvi, 2001)—education providers, governments, telecommunications providers and industry struggled to collaboratively develop a common vision and understanding of the economic, social and cultural national and global benefits of distance learning during this time of often explosive and uneven development (Latchem, 1997).
future trends
The market in distance learning continues to grow, both financially and in terms of global reach. It has been estimated that by 2015, the global online higher education market will be worth more than $69 billion (Hezel Associates, 2005). As a large proportion of this growth will consist of some form of distance education, not only will providers and educators face the kinds of issues described above; the market itself may be challenged by three developments in Internet-based learning: (1) the emergence of electronic publishing and open courseware initiatives seeking to provide open access to these educational resources; (2) the development of user-generated applications, tools and environments; and (3) the fragmentation of information sources and information units used for informal and institutionalised modes of learning.
During the last several years, a number of initiatives have developed that offer free access to course materials from all over the world. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) OpenCourseWare project enables open access to educational materials from over 1,400 MIT courses, including syllabi, lecture notes, exams, reading lists and video lectures. The idea of providing educators, students and self-learners with free access is part of MIT's efforts to reposition itself in a changing and competitive distance environment (Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT], 2006). Similarly, the Open University's OpenLearn project is also making educational resources freely available via the Internet in response to digital divide problems of availability and cost (BBC, 2006). Echoing other initiatives in the U.S. and Japan, OpenLearn reflects a shift away from the proprietary, "top-down" delivery models prevalent in the 1990s.
The growing development of open source and subsequent availability of free software packages, such as Moodle, further challenge proprietary, suite-based frameworks. In recent years, there have been signs of a shift from the centralised provision of content toward applications and services that enable users to take more control over how they access and share information. The rapid adoption and diffusion of user-generated Web sites such as wikis and Web logs reflect a broader shift in Internet-usage toward open-ended, user-driven, participatory online platforms to share, organise and repurpose different kinds of content for publication, subscription and linking across networks (Spivack, 2003; O'Reilly, 2005; Davis, 2005). A blog, for example, is in its most basic sense a personal journal consisting of "a hierarchy of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically, that can be viewed in an HTML browser" so that it can be shared via the Web (Winer, 2003). By enabling users to develop, repurpose and customise their online educational resources and environments, these resources and platforms present opportunities for learning collaborations, knowledge construction and the localisation of culturally appropriate e-learning.
Tools such as wikis and blogs are designed for collaborative participation in the knowledge construction process, facilitating forms of personal knowledge mapping (Langreiter & Bolka, 2005). Wikipedia, for example, is a widely-used reference tool that enables documents to be written collab-oratively using a simple Web-browser, and then continually revised, corrected and expanded by users. Issues of scholarship, authenticity and reliability aside, users of wikis can contribute to knowledge construction as consumers, creators and sharers of content. These applications and approaches broaden the scope for interaction and dialogue, inviting new opportunities for student participation that "is very different from traditionally assigned learning content. It is much less formal. It is written from a personal point of view, in a personal voice, what happens when students blog, and read reach others' blogs, is that a network of interactions forms - much like a social network" (Downes, 2005).
This movement away from the 1990s LMS paradigm favouring passive models of "content-consumption" and object-centred approaches is loosely referred to as "E-learn-ing 2.0." Seeking to move beyond e-learning as a mode of delivery, this approach focuses more on learning actions, the use of interoperable collections of software applications. It also emphasises user-centred design and the nurturing of collaborative learning online (Mowbray, 2007). By interweaving approaches, online resources and applications, E-learning 2.0 suggests a movement in online education toward interoper-ating applications that enable creative learner-centred and potentially collaborative environments. Moving away from established top-down delivery frameworks which narrowly understand e-learning "as being a type of content, produced by developers, organised and structured into courses, and consumed by students," this shift in e-learning seeks to avoid dependency on "an institutional or corporate application" in favour of "a personal learning center, where content is reused and remixed according to the student's own needs and interests" (Downes, 2005).
These approaches and tools for e-learning are not without certain familiar challenges. For example, the cultural frame of MIT courses is predominantly North American and, at the very least, requires varying degrees of contextualisation (e.g., by a local teacher) to be effective. English is arguably the de facto language of the international open source community. (Even though Moodle s online discussions take place in dozens of languages, the English-language nevertheless predominates.)
Much of the current enthusiasm for E-learning 2.0 needs to avoid the dangerous assumption that providing the technological tools for self-expression and creation will lead to empowerment and improved learning and teaching. Changing the emphasis from the design of learning content to the way it is used is a positive step; however, certain cultural and pedagogical issues need to be kept in mind. Langreiter and Bolka (2005) rightly caution that while content can be aggregated and tailored to the needs of individual learners, the task of consolidating and organising disaggregated content is shifted toward the learner. Using Moodle as its central platform, the OpenLearn project encourages learners "to become self-reliant, but also to use online communities to support their learning" (Lane, cited in BBC, 2006). Nevertheless, user-centred approaches require greater responsibility for content creation and maintenance. Not all teachers and learners will have the skills, technological literacy or resources to undertake these learner-centred responsibilities. While many of tomorrow's distance students will indeed be "digital natives" familiar to (if not proficient in) the use of the applications underpinning these environments, one could safely assume that they will continue to have a diverse range of skills, abilities and cultural backgrounds.
The emergent learning environments described above have their own structural biases and values that favour certain learning styles. It may well be that some students prefer to work independently and may not feel comfortable engaging in this kind of participatory process. However, implicitly privileging certain styles of independent learning will not be appropriate for all cultural learning styles.
Spurred by the spontaneous generation and dissemination of content by Web users, a diversification and expansion of information sources and educational resources is challenging conventional processes of information-gathering, research and access to content. The development of online learning may be characterised by a diversification of the types of educational resources available to learners in both informal and institutional settings. Where learners have traditionally consulted a single body of authoritative work (such as a printed journal article or teacher) students increasingly draw from a plethora of Web-based resources, such as online encyclopaedias, teaching materials, discussion forums, and RRS posts (Langreiter & Bolka, 2005).
While this process of fragmentation may be associated with problems such as the questionable use of unauthoritative sources and plagiarism, it is also stimulating educators to develop more diverse approaches to e-learning. Langreiter and Bolka highlight one benefit of fragmentation: information chunks created using a blogging application or a wiki are much easier to produce and maintain than larger networks. "Furthermore," they suggest, "disaggregated content - theoretically - can be re-aggregated to optimally suit an individual learner's preferences (instead of the needs of an idealised common denominator)" (2005, p. 80). Whereas conventional e-learning management systems tend to locate learners as relatively passive receivers of course-materials within a standardised framework, these tools offer new opportunities for distance education to become more responsive and culturally attuned to the different ways that students learn, and through which teachers have the potential to use technology more effectively according to their particular pedagogical strategies.
conclusion
Cultural differences of learners (and teachers) have often been unacknowledged or treated as unproblematic in the design of software and content for online distance learning and delivery. Improved awareness of cultural issues in distance learning is informing the development and adaptation of learning programs and materials for cross-cultural delivery by acknowledging differences in communication and education cultures and incorporating this awareness into programs, resources and modes of delivery (Banks, 2006; Collis, 1996; Zaltsman, 2006). Effective, culturally sensitive and pedagogi-cally appropriate distance learning requires understanding how the basic structure of courses, such as time allocation, assessment practices and pedagogy, and impact upon learners from different backgrounds by privileging certain values over others. In addition, education providers and developers of online distance learning programs, resources and software must be aware of how cultural biases may be built into the design of Websites and software, be it a digital repository, collaborative virtual learning environment, user-driven application or conventional LMS.
According to Sharma and Mishra (2006, p.1), "e-learning is the fastest growing sub-sector of a $2.3 trillion global education market." With this continued growth, there continues to be a danger that online distance learning will be driven by financial rather than culturally sensitive educational imperatives.
Following the unsteady and often culturally problematic growth of the global distance education marketplace during the 1980s and 1990s, recent online developments, such as user-generated software applications, open tools, free content and collaborative approaches present new opportunities and challenges. Nevertheless, the case studies from Indonesia and USP described above illustrate the importance of incorporating understandings of culture into any distance learning program, particularly when delivery is transnational. The mode of delivery may affect learners differently depending on the cultural styles of teaching and learning to which they are accustomed. For example, the collaborative and user-generated learning technologies discussed in the previous section will invariably be imbued with structural properties that may privilege some learners while excluding others previously schooled in different cultural milieus.
And while approaches such as E-learning 2.0 offer scope for flexibility in how learners negotiate distance learning and each other, the effectiveness of any technology in distance learning will continue to depend on how it is used rather than any particular feature ofthe medium itself (Bates, 2005; Inglis, Ling & Joosten, 2002).
KEY TERMS
Distance Education: Provides programs of study and support services to students who do not wish to regularly attend face-to-face teaching or who find on-campus study impractical due to factors such as geographical constraints, family or work commitments.
E-Learning 2.0: Promotes online learning as a platform for personal learning through interoperable tools that enable reusable content to be authored, repurposed, mixed and shared according to students' particular needs and interests.
Globalisation: Globalisation is a process by which the impact of geographical constraints on cultural and social formations is diminished. Economic globalisation, which has arisen due to factors such as changing patterns of world trade and international mobility, is linked to the emergence of a seemingly universal ideology emphasising the need for flexible responsiveness to global markets.
Learning Management System (LMS): Educational software that enables the delivery and management of learning content and resources to students.
Moodle: An open-source online course management system (the name is derived from the acronym Modular Object-oriented Dynamic Learning Environment).
Web Log (Blog): A form of personal journal shared over the Web.
Wiki: Enables content to be written collaboratively using a simple Web browser that can be continually revised, corrected and expanded by its users.