Challenges In Developing a New Distance Education Program: Lessons Learned.

Distance education provides an opportunity for agronomy, crop and soil science departments to attract new students and increase tuition revenue to the university and the department.  However, there are significant challenges to getting started. Faculty require support in instructional design and instructional technology to convert class materials into formats suitable for distance education. There are costs in terms of computer software and accessories, videography, flash programming and there may be infrastructure costs to allow recording of classes and seminars for use by distance education students. Faculty with heavy research and teaching loads require incentives to justify the added workload associated with developing and teaching by distance education. These expenditures must be made before significant revenue can be generated through sale of courses. University policies and support to distance education are vital for a department to develop a financially viable distance education program. The availability of quality instructional design and technology support personnel and whether they should be managed centrally within the university or by academic units is an issue of major importance.  Revenue sharing policies that provide academic units with a major share of tuition revenue can incentivize departments to invest the time and resources to develop distance education programs. The Department of Agronomy and Soils at Auburn University is in the process of developing distance education courses and recently began offering a distance education graduate degree program.  Concurrently, the university has modified undergraduate tuition policies, adversely affecting program viability.  We will review experiences and lessons learned.