Cost Analysis and Return on Investment for Blended Learning

This chapter first introduces some conceptual clarity on various economic terms, especially on costing, cost-effectiveness and cost-efficiency, followed by costing of open and distance learning (ODL) and online learning, and especially blended learning. While we get mixed results for cost-effectiveness and efficiency in the case of blended learning, some of the concerns including return-on-investment (ROI) and return-on-expectations have been discussed. It may be underlined that effectiveness and efficiency of blended learning depends on the type of blending that the institution adopts, faculty and student expertise, and faculty and student involvement. Though efficiency remains as the major institutional concern, most studies have shown that it is effectiveness and quality addition to learning that matters. The future research and evaluation studies on costs of blended learning need to take care of the standardization of the costing approach and cost-effectiveness/efficiency in relation to student satisfaction and learning outcomes in both the limited classroom and the wider distance online learning and blended learning contexts.