Roles in the Instructional Process

A team approach to the development of learning materials is often considered the most appropriate for distance education. The team would be responsible for assessing adult needs, designing learning packages, providing guidance, and assessing performance, and it would include academic content specialists, instructional designers, writers and editors, media specialists, and specialists in adult learner behavior and curriculum development (Verduin & Clark, 1991). These instructional development activities should support the institution's philosophy and goals, and the mission of the distance education program.

If anything is evident in this team approach, it has the potential to be complex and open to interpretation. The roles of academic content specialists, instructional designers, writers and editors, media specialists, and specialists in adult learner behavior and curriculum development can be seen to overlap and to not be very clearly defined. An educational technologist may have skills in instructional design, as a media specialist, in adult learning behavior and in curriculum development, and their job may begin with assessing program needs and end with product implementation. But their role may be perceived as someone working primarily to implement electronic technology into the learning system or simply be misunderstood. The counter problem is that "use of computers, television, teleconferencing, and other means of transmission does not make one an educational technologist" (Wagner, 1990, p. 62).

The relationship between distance education and educational technology is viewed as strong, but the problem of defining roles for instructional designers/ developers is difficult. And the role of the educational technologist may be defined, not by the field, but by the organization's philosophy of education and their broader educational goals. Wagner (1990) suggests that an issue to consider is whether "distance education can afford to emphasize technology" or whether "it must emphasize instruction" (p. 62). Wagner suggests that educational technology can serve as a holistic approach where process and product are both components of the system.