The "DISTANCEducation" section of the Georgia Center Quarterly is designed to provide a forum for discourse and comment about the practice of distance education -- its administration, operation, programs, and activities.
Director, Georgia Center for Continuing Education; Associate Vice-President for Services (Outreach), The University of Georgia; Immediate Past President, University Continuing Education Association (UCEA).
This summer, I travelled to Lillehammer, Norway, and Moscow, Russia, to participate in conferences which were designed to address salient topics affecting the development of distance education worldwide. The experience illuminated a major issue which, if left unaddressed, will hamper the continued effective development of international distance education. This particular issue, with its innumerable dimensions, can be described generically as transnational certification.
Clearly, all players in today's global educational enterprise are affected by the transportability of credits, degrees, and certificates between and among various legitimizing agents. Recognition of this circumstance led to an effort in Lillehammer to identify and deal with these complexities under the banner of a workshop on transnational certification. Kay J. Kohl, executive director of the University Continuing Education Association (UCEA), and Reidar Roll, secretary general of ICDE, provided leadership in designing a preconference workshop for presidents, chancellors, and rectors to examine elements of transnational certification. Offering support then (and a continuing impetus now) for developing a realistic plan to implement transnational certification was Armando Rocha Trindade, rector of the Universidade Aberta in Lisbon, Portugal and president of ICDE.
This cooperative venture followed an agreement reached between ICDE and UCEA the previous summer in which the two organizations sought to develop mutually beneficial strategies for advancing the agenda of continuing education and distance learning. Based in Oslo, Norway ICDE's central office manages a global constituency composed of open and distance education institutions from more than 100 countries which are organized into various regional associations. The organization is affiliated with the United Nations through UNESCO. UCEA is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and is an institutional based association representing more than 430 American colleges, universities, and international affiliates. Aside from a broad spectrum of interests in continuing education, UCEA also includes among its activities issues related to distance learning and certification, thus providing the basis for the cooperative effort in transnational certification.
If I were to ask what you considered to be the elements of transnational certification, I imagine you would offer a number of suggestions: that transnational certification be shaped to include matters related to credit transfer, assessment of prior learning, curriculum design, accreditation, and assessment and evaluation of the learning experience. There would be philosophical elements to consider, as well. For example, should the academy respond unequivocally to the pragmatism of the marketplace with degrees and certificates produced from curricula shaped and molded by the demands of business and industry? Certainly, these consumers of the educational product must be served. They provide us with rapid and candid assessments of our success or failure in preparing students to meet the needs of the labor market. But, is this sufficient or should we concern ourselves, to a greater degree, with "education of the whole person," as it is often described?
To illustrate, how would we or how do we now provide and measure educational experiences from the arts and humanities which offer culturally broadening influences not only through distance education but, for that matter, in the "regular" classroom? Implicit in this question are still other questions I have often heard expressed as concerns among educators who are in the process of dramatically altering the nature of the educational transaction through the application of technology over great distances. Specifically, how does one balance fascination with the use of technology in the instructional design process with the need to offer the most efficient format in which the educational transaction can occur, while, at the same time, assuring cultural enrichment (for lack of a better expression)?
It has been said that information results from the organization of previously random data. In turn, knowledge comes from the logical arrangement of information and, finally, wisdom emerges from the critical and reflective analysis of knowledge insightfully examined. I would suggest that we have been reasonably successful in attaining varying degrees of knowledge about our work in distance or open learning and, often, this has been achieved with the use of technology. However, there is much more we might attain through the insightful study of our rapidly evolving system of global distance education.
Having said this, I do not wish to imply that the implementation of a system for transnational certification will accrue a particular insight or wisdom. I am only suggesting that with the pressure to validate credentials and capabilities of students who are becoming increasingly mobile within their own countries and across national boundaries, it is apparent that there is a need to quantify and qualify the learning of this migrant, global workforce. Indeed, the members of this workforce are looking for educational vendors from numerous venues, both national and international, both nonprofit and proprietary.
Consistent with this thinking, Anthony Pritchard, managing director of Open Learning Australia, had previously offered two proposals at the Lillehammer conference. These proposals were for: (1) "A Global Postgraduate Award" and (2) "International Credit Transfer." The constraints of this space do not permit a detailed examination of these ideas. We should understand, however, that they are significant as they represent important trends in higher education which are emerging on the international scene. Indeed, language from Pritchard's credit transfer proposal captures effectively both the spirit of many educators who might be viewed as mavericks among mainstream colleagues, as well as the logic of their cause. "Distance educators lack some of the psychological and organizational constraints which hinder transfer in traditional institutions, and the logic of distance students being able to access and benefit from all available sources of education seems inescapable."
The task of defining transnational certification and then establishing quantifiable objectives and strategies for its attainment is daunting. (To provide an order of magnitude for the problem, consider the issues raised through regional accreditation in the United States.) Where do we begin and how do we begin? We should not be discouraged by the enormity of the task. Instead, we should take inspiration from the instructions of how one goes about eating an elephant. First, you take a small bite and chew it thoroughly; then, you take a second bite. Perhaps, a project such as transnational certification is one that will always be a work in progress, but, then, so is most of what we are about in education.
For more information about the "DISTANCEducation" section of the Georgia Center Quarterly, or if you'd like to submit an article for consideration, contact Editorial Services, Georgia Center for Continuing Education, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-3603, 706-542-1223, FAX: 706-542-5990, e-mail: shoresj@gactr.uga.edu.
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