The rapid advancement of technology presents us with many alternative options for future education. However, for any educational organization to be successful in providing instruction and facilitating learning, the governance policy and administrative management are as important as the academic credentials. In other words, it is not the technology but a vast combination of social, economic, and political factors that will influence the way we will actually deliver and receive education in the future. The complexity of the administration, management, and policy of distance education organizations however is beyond the scope of a single paper. In this paper, I will discuss the issues of planning, staffing, budgeting, scheduling and policy with a particular focus on the administration, management, and policy involving Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) (http://www.wiche.edu) and the Western Governors University (WGU)(http://www.wgu.edu/
wgu/index.html) in the hope that it will shed some lights on how distance education institutions are and should be approaching these areas.

The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education is a regional organization created by the Western Regional Education Compact. Established by formal legislative action of the states and the U.S. Congress, WICHE is an interstate compact that began operations in 1953 in Eugene, Oregon, moving to its present location in Boulder, Colorado in 1955. Totaling fifteen states as its members, WICHE aims to facilitate resource sharing among the higher education systems of the western states. It has an emphasis on research and analyses of policy and administration such as student cost issues, such as annual tuition and fee data, state financial aid policies, state support for higher education. WICHE's policy analysis and research have provided valuable framework for regional policy and projections to alert education planners to changing state needs.

In 1995, realizing their dwindling state budgets and growing student populations, the members of the Western Governors' Association (WGA) came up with the idea for a western virtual university to make higher education more accessible by using information technologies to collaborate in education, industry and government. Later in the same year, the governors appointed a team to create a design plan and an implementation plan through which such an entity could be established and financed.

In the process of developing the university, because WGU crosses the boundaries of institutions, states, and even countries, the design team assessed the difficulties of bring the governors' vision into reality:

This idea for a joint venture -- harnessing the potential of the new information technologies to reach a wider audience and tackling some of the barriers imposed by statutes, policies and administrative regulations at both the state and federal levels -- is setting a new standard for collaboration in higher education. (WGU: http://www.wgu.edu/wgu/about/whatwe.html#top) They identified and addressed several barriers to the implementation of WGU due to staffing, budgeting, scheduling and policy. Questions such as how many staffs will work for the university, how the budget will be distributed, how the courses will be scheduled, and what governance policies need to be changed to accommodate the cross-state status of the university were asked.

The issue of budgeting received much attention because there are multiple providers of distance education courses in this system. The distribution of funds presents to be a major challenge. According to the recommendations of the design team, WGU's general organizational structure is configured as a central office responsible for governance and policy, for creating and maintaining its key assets (catalog, management systems, etc.), and for quality control. It would work with and through a large number of local/regional centers that are "franchised" by the WGU to provide support services and a point of access for individuals seeking to tap the opportunities offered through the WGU. Accordingly, the Central WGU oversees the financing matter and take care of the participating educational institutions' concerns over the distribution of budget.

Another barrier that was identified is the problems of accreditation and course credit transfer. These issues are addressed by the university's unique structure and competence-based assessment of student achievement. The issue of accreditation arises because the participating institutions are located in different states and accredited by different criteria. It is however not a major problem when WGU does away with a physical campus and utilize only accredited organizations as their local/regional centers. Also, WGU's unique way of credentialing takes care of the problem of course credit transfer. At WGU students are assessed by their competence not seat time; therefore, as long as students can demonstrate their skills and/or knowledge in a subject, they are entitled to the credits for the course.

As it is of today, WGU has two main offices: one of those, the administrative office, is located in Salt Lake City, Utah; the other office, the academic office, is located in Denver, Colorado. The chief academic officer would provide oversight for all WGU academic functions including programs, enrollment in courses through the "Open College Division," and maintenance of the program clearinghouse. Similarly, a chief administrative officer is appointed to head several full-time and part-time employees in the office. In the local/regional centers, coordinators and tutors are also employed to increase the interaction between students and the instructors and the institutions and other students.

In today's economy-driven world, partnerships and collaboration between institutions and the industries is not a fad that will go away. Distance education organizations like WGU is likely to emerge rather than disappear. To ensure the quality of future distance education, the scale of planning, staffing, budgeting, scheduling and policy is particularly enormous because of its inclination to cross the boundaries of institutions, states, and even countries. From the example of the Western Governors University, we can predict that the future of distance education relies not only on the advancement of technology but the human, managerial, and administrative forces that will affect the utilization of technology to deliver quality education at a distance.

Paulson, Karen (1998). Western Governors University.
http://www.nchems.com/newpage9.htm

Western Governors University.
http://www.wgu.edu/wgu/index.html (July 22, 1998)

The WGA Virtual University Design Team. (1996). Implementation Plan. http://www.wgu.edu/wgu/about/imp_plan.html  (July 23, 1998)
/about/index.html).