Taxonomy of higher education delivery modes: a conceptual framework

摘要

Even after the two decades of the Internet’s emergence, thehigher education sector has not fully capitalized on the onlineplatform’s efficiency. Online education has remained a smallproportion of the overall course/degree program offerings atmost universities. While the online platform enables cost andtime efficiencies due to its inherent spatial and temporal flexibilities,it also creates efficacy challenges in meeting diverselearning and pedagogical needs. Before the coronavirus pandemic,online education was predominantly deployed in anasynchronous mode, resulting in a lack of effective studentengagement, personalized learning, integrity issues, and marketacceptance. The Covid-19 pandemic has compelled the widespreadadoption of synchronous online education that canremove efficacy barriers of asynchronous online mode. Basedon the efficiency and efficacy tradeoffs, a conceptual frameworkfor classifying various higher education delivery modes is presentedin this article. The framework can help higher educationstakeholders choose the most appropriate delivery mode basedon their diverse needs.