Essay Example on Costs of Technology in Learning

The wide spread of the technological advancement has led to increased costs which are incurred during the use of these types of equipment. It has led to online education which has enabled academic institutions to be able to provide distance learning. Through these new technologies, businesses can conduct online training. The costs of technology can be divided into a variety of categories which includes infrastructure, administrative applications, and the academic applications.

The government, as well as the private institutional centers, tend to invest millions of dollars in the information and communication technology. The universities prioritize in the investment of Information Technology with the aim of providing quality education. The costs incurred on technology-based teaching differ from costs incurred while teaching through face to face regarding the ratio of fixed to variable costs. In the Universities, costs tend to increase with the number of students. This is because there will be more usage of the internet and also more costs will be incurred to install these technologies in different departments. Costs increase as a step function. The technology based courses such as the e-learning courses are expensive to set up but once they have been set-up many students can use the technology with lower costs being incurred. Their fixed costs tend to be higher while their variable costs are relatively lower. The Information Technology will need to invest in high speed internet transmission at a cost that is relatively low and affordable to the users and enhances security. It will help e-learning to easily take place as there will be no connection problems between the students and their tutors and communication process will be enhanced. It will ensure that students get their e-learning materials online without any delay. The tightening of security will help that the information offered online is not manipulated by hackers as it can lead to misleading information being acquired (Lockyer, 2011).

The cost tends to be so high due to the lack of application and development of a cost-benefit analysis. The managers, researchers and the government do not carry out the analysis hence once implemented the costs exceeds the benefits. There is an underlying structure to technology costs despite them varying from one context to another which enables the formulation of a reasonable cost analysis that is accurate. The costing exercise should depend on various assumptions that have been made. The management should be in a position to decide what should be considered as a cost.

The cost benefit analysis in this scenario can work by determining and estimating the strengths and the weaknesses of other alternatives that can serve the same purposes of that technology that is being used. The management and those responsible for the technological costs should verify if the costs are being outweighed by the costs and also be able to determine its by how much. They should also compare the total expected costs of each option as to that of the benefits that are being expected. The cost benefit analysis should help in the identification of choices that will lead in the increasing of welfare from a utilitarian perspective. The secondary sources of research and the google scholar information tend to provide good information on the aspect of using e-learning (Mishan, 1994).

In conclusion, the management of learning institutions and organizations should ensure that they carry out a cost based analysis before the implementation of a particular technology to ensure that its revenue and benefits are more to the costs that are incurred to run that particular technology.

References

Lockyer, L. (2011). Handbook of research on learning design and learning objects: Issues, applications and technologies. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.

Mishan, E. J. (1994). Cost-benefit analysis: An informal introduction. London [u.a.: Routledge.