Potential Savings
In other sectors of the economy, the use of technology has
increased productivity, measured as outputs divided by
inputs, and often increased output as well. Our study shows
that a leading prototype hybrid-learning system did not
increase outputs (student learning) but could potentially
increase productivity by using fewer inputs.
It would seem to be straightforward to compare the
side-by-side costs of the hybrid version of the statistics
course and the traditional version. The problem, however,
is that contemporaneous comparisons can be nearly
useless in projecting long-term costs, because the costs
of doing almost anything for the first time are very different
from the costs of doing the same thing numerous
times. This is especially true in the case of online learning,
where there are substantial start-up costs that have to
be considered in the short run but are likely to decrease
over time. For example, the development of sophisticated
hybrid courses will be a costly effort that would only be a
sensible investment if the start-up costs were either paid
for by others (foundations and governments) or shared
by many institutions.