Should I have ordered a different version?

A Learning College, published in 1997, is showing its age. At the time the book was written, the internet was just coming into its own. Understandably, teachers were worried about how this new technology would impact education. Again, however, O'Banion minimizes these concerns, and instead, lumps teachers into two camps:

• "hopeful educators looking to improve a process they know is not working well" (p. 67), or
• "faculty unions fighting fearfully to protect their current status and jobs." (p. 67)

O'Banion especially takes issue with the American Federation of Teachers, seeming to imply that their concerns about "jobs, compensation for time spent in learning to use technology, intellectual property rights, ... workloads ... [and] personal interaction between students and faculty ..." (p.66) are somehow red herrings standing in the way of innovation.

He further says that the AFT "opposes courses taught on the internet ... unless they meet standards of quality set by faculty [emphasis added]." These don't seem like roadblocks to me; they seem like legitimate concerns. To my mind, faculty members are just asking for a voice in how distance education is implemented.

I went in search of the AFT's current position on distance education, and I found a full report at:


http://archive.aft.org/topics/tech-highered/index.htm

In a nutshell, according to the American Federation of Teachers' Distance Education --Guidelines for Good Practice:

1. Faculty must retain academic control
2. Faculty must be prepared to meet the special requirements of teaching at a distance
3. Course design should be shaped to the potentials of the medium
4. Students must fully understand course requirements and be prepared to succeed
5. Close personal interaction must be maintained
6. Class Size should be set through normal faculty channels
7. Courses should cover all material
8. Experimentation with a broad variety of subjects should be encouraged
9. Equivalent research opportunities must be provided
10. Student assessment should be comparable
11. Equivalent advisement opportunities must be offered
12. Faculty should retain creative control over use and re-use of materials
13. Full undergraduate degree programs should include same-time same-place coursework
14. Evaluation of distance coursework should be undertaken at all levels

My question is this: Do the guidelines set forth by the AFT appear to be roadblocks, or are they reasonable?