Resource Generation in Distance Education

Question 1

a growing concern for higher education institutions as they struggle to contain costs while providing quality education in a technologically rich and competitive environment. (Neely & Tucker, 2010)

Answer 1

instructional costs per student

Question 2

In terms of cost classification, UNESCO (1977) classified costs of education into four groups: (belawati 2006)

Answer 2

1. Technical classification refers to the costs of technical operation of education,
2. economic classification consists of fixed and variable costs,
3. accountability classification includes capital and operational costs, and
4. financial classification refers to direct and indirect costs.

Question 3

consist of direct and indirect costs which is what he called as opportunity costs or forgone earnings (belawati 2006)

Answer 3

Household costs

Question 4

institutional costs include (belawati 2006)

Answer 4

recurrent and capital costs.

Question 5

the most commonly used by studies which compare the cost of different educational institutions using different teaching-learning systems, particularly between the ODL system and the conventional face-to-face system. (belawati 2006)

Answer 5

fixed and variable cost model of analysis

Question 6

usually defined as the expenses that are independent of the number of students (belawati 2006)

Answer 6

fixed costs

Question 7

Fixed costs can be divided into (belawati, 2006)

Answer 7

capital and recurrent costs.

Question 8

are the expenses influenced by the number of students. (belawati 2006)

Answer 8

variable costs

Question 9

can be the analysis of the institution as a whole or of a specific/particular teaching-learning outcome depending on the purpose of the analysis (belawati 2006)

Answer 9

effectiveness analysis

Question 10

The objective of Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) (belawati 2006)

Answer 10

to determine if the project being evaluated is economically feasible

Question 11

a tool for estimating the returns expected from different alternative methods to achieve an objective, especially when the ‘outcomes’ cannot be easily measured in monetary terms. (belawati 2006)

Answer 11

Cost-effectiveness analysis

Question 12

three specific approaches to conducting CEA (belawati 2006)

Answer 12

1. The constant-cost analysis focuses on the attainment of optimum outcomes that can be achieved within a particular amount of budget.
2. The least cost-analysis main concern is to identify the cheapest alternative method to attain some pre-determined level of the objective.
3. And the objective-level analysis is to estimate the costs of achieving performance levels under a single alternative method.

Question 13

compares the cost of education to the outputs or the effects within education such as the acquisition of cognitive and non-cognitive skills (belawati 2006)

Answer 13

Internal efficiency

Question 14

compares the cost of education to the external benefits of education such as productivity in post schooling work (belawati 2006)

Answer 14

external efficiency

Question 15

basically measures the relationship between physical inputs and outputs (belawati 2006)

Answer 15

Technical efficiency

Question 16

attaches monetary values to the inputs and outputs of efficiency (belawati 2006)

Answer 16

economic efficiency

Question 17

Factors affecting the cost of open and distance learning (Moore & Tait 2002)

Answer 17

• The number of learners enrolled
• The size of the curriculum
• The number of years over which courses are offered without change
• Containment of course development costs - wrap-around materials
• Sharing course development costs
• Technology choice
• The level of student support.
• Working practices - Course teams, reducing the size of the course modules
• Labour market practices - short-term contracts
• Structural practices - aggregation and outsourcing of services