‘Faculty commitment and buy-in are essential to move into distance delivery; specific issues to address include the impact on faculty workloads, appropriate compensation and recognition, and how to provide professional development opportunities on technology use and teaching methods that promote learning communities. Technology support is essential; specific issues to address include selecting and securing appropriate and reliable technology that is user friendly for both faculty and student access and use. Once a vision is established that complements the institution’s strategic plan, leadership must emerge to establish a departmental strategy over a given time frame that includes promoting, marketing, and implementing courses. Departmental leadership may also need to "push" other administrative levels to deal with providing appropriate course security, integrating the distance education effort into tenure guidelines, and providing access to student services.
College level administrative responsibilities. College level administration normally addresses financial and student related issues along with those focused on quality and effectiveness. Funding up-front costs in distance education as well as integrating financial needs into an on-going budget creates challenges. Funding formulas need to be addressed so that distance education is recognized as an intricate part of the educational process so reliance on external grants to support distance education programs can be minimized. Addressing financial issues is crucial in bringing along department chairs who have not yet implemented distance education.
Student issues that may need attention at the college level include student participation in learning communities for peer support in the learning process, processes for accessing library and instructional materials, course and program services, a help desk support, individual services, and student financial aid. The college also needs to assume primary leadership for course quality standards that support all departments within a college as well as developing strategies for measuring the effectiveness of the educational programs.
Central administration. Integrating technology into the educational paradigm and using it for distance delivery pushes some issues to the forefront and requires special attention so the institution addresses them properly; these include intellectual property and academic control issues, transfer and articulation of courses policies, consortia and partnership relationships, and regulations imposed by accrediting agencies, boards, taxing authorities, and federal laws."
More at http://www.westga.edu/%7Edistance/ojdla/fall83/schauer83