Brandenberger and Nalebuff (1996) suggest that universities should think more like for-profit businesses in the Value Net context. The “privatization wave” implies that governments should as well. This implies that a “business case” must be made in the non-profit sectors for all investment options, including IT. Oberlin (1994, 1996a, 1996b) outlined the format for universities, and there is a growing movement for governments to evaluate IT with respect to expected returns to the money spent (City of Philadelphia, 2001).
Applying cost-benefit analysis can be a sobering process. “Geeks and gizmos” get put into a “Do we really need them?” light. As Norman (1993) points out, they often cannot make it past this type of scrutiny when resources are tight. What can come to their rescue are alliances with the “technology wave” Complementor companies (e.g., the IBM Laptop University) and Complementor governments (e.g., accelerated tax write-offs) in the Value Net. These help “seed” the future with the techno-transformation of the present. Economists warn, however, that at any point in time, the subsidization of goods and services can generate deadweight losses. Future gains, at an appropriate discount rate, must exceed those losses for efficiency to be achieved over time.
The true answer to “Can a Viable Distance Education Program Stay Behind the Technology ‘Wave’?” must entail detailed cost-benefit analyses of actual programs. These analyses should critically evaluate the goals of the programs (Kaufman, Watkins, & Guerra, 2001), the internal means of achieving these goals, and the relationships to external Value Net components, especially Customers. The roles of IT and IS in each dimension should provide fertile ground for research, as will estimation of the benefits of space-time flexibility.
The single-course and single-program perspectives used above need to be generalized into a generic program-evaluation template. The road to future Distance Education (Collis & Gommer, 2001a, 2001b) should be paved with
reason. Staying slightly behind the wave may be the best policy for programs
viable in the above sense to also generate positive net benefits. Only time and careful evaluation will tell.
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