Digital courseware comes in many flavors and sizes, not dissimilar to Baskin Robbins (or Ben & Jerry’s, if you prefer). While costs are easy to compare the overall return – to the student, faculty and institution – is a bit trickier to uncover and requires effort to compile. The article noted below emphasizes three key points for adopting an ROI-based lens:
- Need to understand how faculty and students spend their time, and how it translates to student success
- It’s not price per unit, but price per outcome (credential) that matters. Spending more on courseware could lead to lowering expenses for attaining credentials.
- Link student success to financial results, e.g., improved retention, higher course and program completion rates
Expanding further, new investments in enabling technology for instructors and students may have upfront expenses – making them appear more expensive – but when all the efficiency gains and improvements in outcomes are tabulated it’s probable that properly selected and implemented courseware can yield superior financial returns for an institution and superior outcomes in terms of degree completion and job placement for students.
Traditional methods of instruction are familiar and often appear low-cost because faculty lecturing in a classroom may require less “tech” and investment than digital courseware models.
Defining Digital Courseware’s ROI in Terms of Student Success (EdSurge News)
