Edmonds Community College and Business Distance-Learning Programs in the Russian Far East

by Kevin McKay and Andy Williams,
Edmonds Community College

In 1999, Edmonds Community College (EdCC), Lynnwood, Washington, received a grant from the United States Information Agency to foster the development of distance-learning-based business curriculum in the Russian Far East. For this project, EdCC worked with the following institutions: the Far Eastern State Transport University in Khabarovsk, the Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service, the Far Eastern State Academy of Economics and Management, and the Far Eastern State University (since renamed Far Eastern National University) in Vladivostok, Russia.

The original project proposal identified three goals:

• Provide five faculty from each participating institution with knowledge and hands-on training in the design and implementation of business management distance-education courses for students and business people.
• Develop the capability and infrastructure of the Russian institutions to offer business management courses via the Internet.
• Develop a continuing advisory relationship between EdCC and the four Russian institutions to assist in the design and delivery of business management curriculum via the Internet.

The project proposal specified the following outcome: each of the participating Russian institutions will have at least one business management course offered online at one or more of their branch campuses.

To accomplish this goal EdCC staff members conducted an assessment site visit at the four universities in Russia during September 1999. They interviewed administrators and faculty, helped define teams for training in the U.S., assessed each university’s technology infrastructure, and conducted seminars on distance learning and the Internet. In January 2000 each university sent a team of five, consisting of faculty, administration, and technical coordinators to EdCC for a three-week distance-learning training course. The workshop was conducted in Russian and English. Each participant received a 150-page training manual, covering both technical and curriculum development objectives, which was created in both languages.

In September 2000, two EdCC staff members, Kevin McKay and Andy Williams, returned to Russia to provide additional assistance and to evaluate the progress of each university toward their goal of delivering a course online to their branch campuses. Williams is an accounting instructor who has been teaching online for five years. McKay is EdCC’s Distance Learning Coordinator and has been involved in online education for over eight years. They led the curriculum development and the instruction for the three-week course taught in January 2000.

Original Needs Assessment—September 1999
From the outset, it was apparent that distance learning already existed in the Russian Far East, but in the form of paper-based correspondence courses with proctored tests occurring at branch campuses, similar to traditional non-Internet-based distance-learning in the United States. Because these courses were self-paced, lacked interaction, and relied on entirely paper-based delivery of course content, these courses were viewed as of lesser academic value than traditional lecture courses, and were not included as part of mainstream degree programs.

As with any other institution contemplating an online course delivery program, technological capabilities posed a hurdle to the Russian institutions. Specific technical resources and infrastructure differed at each university. However, none had the necessary bandwidth to deliver highly interactive online courses via web-based courseware. Such courseware demands that students spend time online working, rather than easily accommodating offline work. To effectively deliver the web-based information, Internet connection speeds of a minimum of 28.8 KBPS are required. In all cases, computer labs shared anywhere from 28.8 to 64 KBPS connections, effectively reducing bandwidth at each station to a fraction of the necessary capacity. In addition, connection time was very expensive and unreliable. At the branch campuses, the bandwidth capacity was usually much worse.

Based on these observations from our initial needs assessment, the team recommended a low bandwidth distance-learning strategy, using email-based classroom interaction and combined with paper, CD-based, and some web-based course materials. This approach would allow for most work being done offline, reduce online time to small bursts of sending and receiving text-based information, and some minimal and optional time on the Web, where appropriate and possible. Adding an email listserv to this mix affords the opportunity for students to work together and participate in asynchronous discussion without requiring high bandwidth or significant amounts of time online.

During that initial visit, the groundwork was also created for the universities to select an effective team of faculty, technical experts, and administrators to participate in the workshop to be held at EdCC in January 2000.

Workshop at EdCC— January 2000
When the teams arrived at our college and the workshop began, all four universities made it clear that they were looking at nothing less than fully web-based online courses, despite the lack of infrastructure noted the previous September. Each team’s technical staff representatives indicated their university had acquired the necessary bandwidth to host such courseware and that at least some of their branch campuses were now capable of sufficient bandwidth for delivery of courses to students.

As the workshop progressed, the teams gained understanding of the pedagogy of teaching online as well as the role of class interaction in the learning and assessment process for online classes. As with such workshops presented to U.S. instructors, issues of course structure and context, identification of learning objectives and strategies, and assessment were addressed and placed in the context of a distance-learning environment. The Russian teams quickly grasped the need to restructure their existing courses if the online delivery was to be successful for students and to develop the academic quality necessary for those courses to be accepted by the mainstream. The teams’ interest in web-based classrooms increased and they arrived at the conclusion that this approach could work in their learning environment. Accordingly, while still showcasing lower bandwidth alternatives, the workshop was adjusted to address the necessary training in the use of web-based courseware for online classrooms.

Return Assessment Trip— September 2000
We found only one university (Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service) ready to deliver online courses using web-based courseware during our return assessment trip. The Computer Science department had developed an excellent web based course delivery program (courseware) called Avanta http://avanta.vvsu.ru/ which bears the influence of other web-based courseware and was inspired by the use of courseware in our workshop. Dr. Vladimir Kryukov, Chair of the Department of Computer Technologies and Systems, and participant in our workshop, directed the development of that software. Since the workshop, the university has started to use Avanta for online delivery of courses. This software was tested and reviewed by both our team and a team from Europe working on academic quality and was praised for its ease of use, complete set of features, and native Russian language support. Faculty who are already using the software seem pleased.

However, similar to experiences of teams from any institution who participate in workshops and return to attempt change, the three other teams faced implementation issues. These institutions still lacked the bandwidth to access such courses within their own campuses. Additionally, they were not able to demonstrate adequate access from their branch campuses. Two universities had chosen an approach that used self-paced CD-based correspondence courses. Those courses provided email access to faculty or a staff member who would facilitate communication between students and faculty. The third university was in the process of establishing the necessary bandwidth during our visit, but was only beginning to consider selecting courseware and training faculty. For these latter three universities, low bandwidth solutions continue to make more sense, though their representatives were reluctant to concede these options.

Acceptance of the curriculum remained an obstacle as well. From conversations with faculty, it is apparent that any form of distance-learning-based courses is viewed with skepticism by the Russian Ministry of Education as well as by the established academic departments of each institution. Increasing the challenge of acceptance is the vertical structure of academic divisions within each university. Survey and introductory-level courses are rarely shared across academic divisions in the traditional Russian University curriculum, and therefore, each course developed for online delivery serves only a small portion of the student population. When such courses are further segregated to “continuing education” or “distance-learning institutes” instead of administered from an academic division, it is difficult for those courses to be perceived as of equal academic value compared with courses delivered using traditional methods. As with some U.S. educational institutions, distance learning continues to be viewed with skepticism.

Effective Distance Learning and the Russian Far East
The distance-learning needs of universities in the Russian Far East are different from the needs of universities in the United States. In the United States, schedule flexibility, rather than distance from an institution of higher learning, drives the growth of distance-learning programs. By contrast in Russia, the vast distances and the difficulty of travel drive the need almost entirely. Students in outlying villages need the ability to minimize travel to even the branch universities. Main campuses need to minimize the time and expense of sending specialists to branch campuses. At those branches, distance-learning students can collaborate, and even be combined with small pools of students at other branch campuses, online with instructors located at either the main campus or at any of the branch campuses. Students in rural villages can gain access to online information from the local post office, as was demonstrated by one of the universities. The cost of a computer and Internet connection, while still expensive, may be less than the costs of travel and accommodation in a distant city.

Given those logistical issues as well as a lack of technical resources, some of the Russian universities chose a strategy of self-paced computer-based training as a solution to those obstacles. That delivery approach should be enhanced with email communication as well as by classes that are organized to utilize group work. Such a combination, while less sophisticated than most U.S. models, may provide an adequate balance for these universities.

These economic and technical issues are the major differences between the successful implementation of distance-learning programs at the Russian institutions that we visited and American institutions. Yet, the similarities are significant as well. Effective distance-learning programs require a significant investment in infrastructure, hardware, software, bandwidth, and training for faculty, demanding an institutional commitment to that online program. Where that commitment is made by an institution in the development of both infrastructure and individuals, advances can be achieved.

In the United States, to address the technical and logistical issues, collaborative solutions are common, and include partnerships between educational providers, publishers, and technology enterprises. These partnerships again require an institutional commitment, and fostering of a team approach to the challenge of the development of an effective program. In the Russian institutions that we visited, the concept of such cross-institutional collaboration seemed remote, as entrenched bureaucracies may be challenged by the new paradigm.

The same pedagogical issues that are faced by distance-learning programs in the U.S. were raised by their Russian counterparts. In particular, questions arose regarding academic quality, integrity, assessment, and lack of discussion between students and faculty. While cultural differences in the delivery of traditional higher education between Russian and U.S. universities are evident, the solutions to those questions are similar. We consistently found, in our presentations and discussions with faculty and administration throughout the region, that once the pedagogy of asynchronous online discussion was understood, the hesitation regarding online courses quickly faded and was replaced with enthusiasm. Without such online interaction, the classes are more appropriately labeled as correspondence courses. With such interaction, effective learning can take place, and assessment mechanisms developed to measure that effectiveness.

Outlook for Russian Far East and Distance Learning
It is apparent that change is slowly taking place and that technology-enhanced distance learning is beginning to gain acceptance. The Ministry of Education, while still taking a relatively skeptical view of current distance learning, is starting to explore online learning models as well as web-based courseware. Many individual faculty are interested in exploring online learning as an option and the young generation of faculty are enthusiastic about working with the online learning tools they have seen deployed elsewhere, including at the workshop at EdCC. Faculty from the institutions that we visited are now participating in EdCC online courses, and we are exploring new grant opportunities to continue our work. Furthermore, economic conditions in the Russian Far East, while still tenuous, have improved, making access to technology more affordable than it was two or three years ago. The university administrations and faculty were receptive to the development of distance-learning business curriculum with teams and individuals from other American universities and organizations, as well as from the European Union. All of these efforts continue to reduce the resistance to distance learning and to foster greater connections between the Russian educators and United States and European Union academic communities. This continued cooperation and exposure will lead to further mainstreaming of distance learning in Russia as it has in the United States.