Implementing a Cost Effectiveness Analyzer for Web-Supported Academic Instruction: A Campus Wide Analysis

This paper describes the implementation of a quantitative cost effectiveness analyzer for Web-supported academic instruction that was developed in Tel Aviv University during a long term study. The paper presents the cost effectiveness analysis of Tel Aviv University campus. Cost and benefit of 3,453 courses were analyzed, exemplifying campus-wide analysis. These courses represent large-scale Web-supported academic instruction processes throughout the campus. The findings were described, referring to students, instructors and university from both the economical and educational perspectives. The cost effectiveness values resulting from the calculations were summarized in four "coins" (efficiency coins=$; quality coins; affective coins; and knowledge management coins) for each of the three actors (students, instructors and university). In order to examine the distribution of those values throughout the campus assessment scales were created on the basis of descriptive statistics. The described analyzer can be implemented in other institutions very easily and almost automatically. This enables us to quantify the costs and benefits of Web-supported instruction on both the single-course and the campus-wide levels. (Contains 1 figure and 3 tables.)