The final assignment for the Technology in Distance Education course required to review an existing educational department. The artefact describes the department's purpose and organizational structure (including administration, facilities and the equipment), its services and customers, as well as the methods of quality control. The assignment required to evaluate the efficiency of the program. The title I developed for this assignment was: CPA Pre-Professional Education: Structure and Technology Service. I described a distance educational program I am most familiar with, which let me learn and critically analyze the Bates’ SECTIONS model outlined in his monograph.

Apart from the practical application of this analysis, the assignment was also meaningful to me because it let me study the Bates’ textbook deeper. Most of the reading materials in this course and for this assignment in particular reflected the past educational directions, and were already not relevant at the time of the course, even though none of the materials were older than 10 years. This made me conduct research on the Moore's law (Moore, 1965) and draw connections between it and distance education, which also progresses exponentially, drastically changing all the time. It is fascinating to see the progress that has been made in the last several years (6.1). As I mentioned in my M.Ed. goals description earlier, I was trying to find a program that would provide perspectives for future professional growth. This finding once again reassured me that distance education will continue its rapid development and that it really has promising future. 

Working on the analysis of the Pre-professional program I coordinate, also allowed me to look at it from a different angle. I described the program, its objectives and goals I had learnt from work experience, and it made me realize how complicated the functionality is. I witnessed the development of the program from scratch and was part of it, but over the years new requirements kept coming and new structures were built over the old ones. Completing this assignment was essential for my learning in the M.Ed. program due to two factors: theoretical research in the area, and the practical application of the results of this research. I learnt about the SECTIONs program analysis through applying it to the program I coordinate at work. This allowed me to plan and design the future directions of professional development at work. Looking at the program and outlining its accountability and quality control models let me see the bigger picture and the adjustments that did not make much sense when they were introduced by the executive team (6.1, 6.2).

The analysis includes a chapter on the program quality control. Working on this requirement made me cognizant of two directions of quality control in a distance program that must be considered: student evaluation and program evaluation. The first part was easy, as student assessment is based on their final grades; however, the program evaluation turned out to be a multi-faceted issue, which includes customer feedback,  quality control of course materials, surveys, technology updates, etc. Earlier my main method of measuring the program efficiency was students’ success of the program (i.e. pass rates), and I did not consider the administrative side of it, which also directly contributes to student (and, subsequently, program) success (3.4, 6.5). Therefore, after the completion of the MDDE 620, I decided to take MDDE 617: Program Evaluation in Distance Education.

The Technology Upgrades section describes the software and hardware used for the Pre-professional program. At the time I was working on the assignment, my program was transitioning from the previous exam application to the new one. That was an important transition affecting thousands of students, and the assignment allowed me to evaluate the potential outcomes of this decision. This was a good training on strategical thinking and trying to predict how the situation would unwrap in the future (3.2, 3.3). 

The program uses a number of other online software tools (LMS, CRM and the registration portal). Several years ago, I was part of the team who worked mainly with the LMS, but later I transitioned to the admissions side and I now mostly working with the CRM and the registration portal. The LMS version has significantly changed since then, and having to outline the main features of the platform was just new learning for me. It was very useful for my everyday student support role at work, because I was able to advise the students on how to use the system, and the assignment was a good refresher on that topic (3.1, 3.5).

Describing the organisational structure in the final section of the assignment provided a bird’s-eye view on the departmental changes in the recent years. Often enough I find myself so preoccupied with my everyday routine business that I do not notice bigger regulatory transformations and shifts, and just get engaged in the conventional tasks. Assignments like this definitely help seeing a broader corporate perspective and reflect on my work experience (6.2). 

Bates, A.W. (2015). Teaching in Digital Age. Vancouver, BC: Tony Bates Associates, Ltd.

Moore, G. (1965). Cramming more components onto integrated circuits. Electronics. 38(8). Retrieved from http://www.monolithic3d.com/uploads/6/0/5/5/6055488/gordon_moore_1965_article.pdf

Moore's Law. (n.d.). Wikipedia. [Table]. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law