Organizational Alignment Supporting Distance Education in Post-Secondary Institutions.

Leveraging Internet technologies, distance education is enjoying a renaissance of sorts. With its newfound popularity comes greater resource as well as higher expectations and great scrutiny. If distance education programs are to support their dramatic growth and outlive the hype, they must demonstrate performance results. Performance, however, does not just happen. High quality organizations actively support performance through processes, structures, and feedback systems that are aligned with organizational goals. In presenting recommendations for performance-oriented approaches, an established model of organizational alignment is applied to distance education in postsecondary institutions. The model facilitates the analysis of goals, structure, and management practices across the organization, its processes, as well as the work and workers involved. Also presented are performance improvement strategies such as benchmarking and documenting workflows, setting clear expectations, and developing feedback systems. Distance education practitioners can use the organizational alignment model and the strategies discussed to design a new program or transform an existing one. (Contains 41 references.) (Author/AEF) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Organizational Alignment Supporting Distance Education in Post-Secondary Institutions By: Gustavo E. Prestera, & Leslie A. Moller PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) IThis document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. 2 BEST COPY AVAIIRABLIE Organizational Alignment Supporting Distance Education in Post-secondary Institutions Gustavo E. Prestera Leslie A. Moller Pennsylvania State University Abstract Leveraging Internet technologies, distance education is enjoying a renaissance of sorts. With its newfound popularity come greater resources as well as higher expectations and greater scrutiny. If distance education programs are to support their dramatic growth and outlive the hype, they must demonstrate performance results. Performance, however, does not just happen. High quality organizations actively support performance through processes, structures, and feedback systems that are aligned with organizational goals. In presenting recommendations for performance-oriented approaches, an established model of organizational alignment is applied to distance education in postsecondary institutions. The model facilitates the analysis of goals, structure, and management practices across the organization, its processes, as well as the work and workers involved. Also presented are performance improvement strategies such as benchmarking and documenting workflows, setting clear expectations, and developing feedback systems. Distance education practitioners can use the organizational alignment model and the strategies discussed to design a new program or transform an existing one. Introduction Onto the Web we go Though distance education has been around in various forms for many years, it is only recently -with the emergence of web-based delivery platforms -that it has become the center of so much attention (Foshay & Moller, in press). "Where distance education used to suffer from benign neglect, now everyone wants to have a say in how (it) is used, controlled, and managed" (Sachs, 1999: p.75). Many institutions that previously ignored distance education altogether, are now rushing to deploy their own online programs in an effort to curb damage to their enrollments and possibly their reputations.