WCET: The Cooperative advancing the effective use of technology in higher education.

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About

What TCM is—

TCM is an authoritative tool for analyzing costs. TCM's procedures include standard definitions of cost categories that allow institutions and multi-institutional agencies to: a) analyze the costs of instructional approaches that make heavy use of technology; and b) legitimately compare cost data for different instructional approaches.

What TCM is not—

TCM is not a set of accounting protocols. Campuses vary widely in their accounting software and procedures. Rather than trying to fit a vast array of accounting protocols, TCM allows costing data to be transformed into a standard format for making comparisons.

TCM is not a cost/benefit analysis. Since definitions of "quality" and "benefits" vary widely, these determinations are left to the campus. TCM focuses on measuring costs.

TCM History

Development of the Technology Costing Methodology (TCM) Project was funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FIPSE) and is a joint endeavor between the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET) and the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems ( NCHEMS ). TCM began in September of 1998 with a goad to develop and pilot test an authoritative costing methodology (and related procedures) for calculating costs:

• Within an institution to determine if proposed instructional approaches that make heavy use of technology actually do serve to contain costs; and    

• Across institutions, allowing data to be compared legitimately for different instructional or technological approaches, which will benefit legislatures, state-governing boards, state coordinating boards, and federal agencies.

BRIDGE Model History

The BRIDGE Model was created by the California State University Office of the Chancellor in partnership with EDUCAUSE's National Learning Infrastructure Initiative. The goal of the project was to create a tool to perform "what if" analysis on different mixes of instructional design strategies. The user is allowed to adjust such factors as the initial development costs, the marginal costs of offering a course, the technologies used, the number of students served, the number of partners developing the course(s), and other factors. By adjusting the mixture, a projected "break even" point (if any) between technology-mediated and face-to-face instruction can be determined.

When the California State University decided to no longer support the BRIDGE Model, WCET agreed to continue to make model available. With assistance from the Andrew Mellon Foundation, improvements to the BRIDGE Model were made and procedures for using TCM costing outputs as input to the BRIDGE model were developed.

TCM Products

Tools to assist you in applying the Technology Costing Methodology to determine the costs of educational technologies are available from WCET:

• The TCM Handbook, Version 2.0 — step-by-step procedures for applying the costing methodology.

• The TCM Casebook, Version 2.0 — write-ups on the experiences of 16 pilot sites utilizing TCM and four white papers produced through the TCM Project that focus on costing and technology issues in higher education.

• The TCM Tabulator, Version 2.0 — a series of Microsoft Excel® spreadsheets that assist in applying the TCM procedures. The TCM Tabulator User's Manual — full instructions on how to use each section and component of the TCM Tabulator.

• The TCM Tabulator EZ — a shorter version of the TCM Tabulator intended for new users who wish to practice or for those who want to create reports more quickly.

• The BRIDGE Model — a tool useful for projecting the impact of costs across several courses or across an entire campus.

• The TCM Tutorial — a step-by-step tutorial designed to help all users improve their effectiveness and efficiency when using the TCM Tabulator.

A CD-ROM containing all of the TCM products and that easily installs all of the products onto your computer is available through this web site at a rate of $25 for members and $50 for non-members. Some of the products are available to be downloaded fro free through this web site by going to the appropriate link for that product.

TCM Consulting

If you would like additional assistance in understanding and implementing the Technology Costing Methodology, WCET and NCHEMS can provide a variety of consulting services:

• Understanding TCM procedures. For those charged with performing the work or implementing the TCM procedures, training or advice is available. We first recommend trying the TCM Tutorial, but you can also contract with TCM to have individual assistance on items such as:

  • How do I planning and conduct a costing analysis?

  • When do I do I need to collect actual date and when can I use estimates?

  • How do I know my estimates are "good enough"?

  • How do I handle a particularly unique situation?

• TCM Seminars. If you have several people who need to be trained in the TCM procedures, we can conduct an on-site seminar. A web-based seminar is being developed.

• Policy issues. Aimed at campus leaders, TCM can provide individual assistance or seminars on the larger policy questions of costing analyses, such as:

  • When should I conduct a costing analysis?

  • How do I interpret the results of the analysis?

  • How should the analysis affect decision-making?

  • How do costs relate to the overall goals of my institution?

Consultants include:

• Dennis Jones, president, NCHEMS

• Marianne Boeke, research associate, NCHEMS

• Tom Henderson, assessment coordinator, Washington State University

• Russell Poulin, associate director, WCET

Use this form to request consulting services or call 303-541-0231. WCET Consulting»

Citations

When referring to the TCM products, the following citation formats should be used:
Boeke, M. (Ed.). (2004). TCM Casebook, Version 2.0 . Boulder, CO : WCET
Jones, D. (2004). TCM Handbook, Version 2.0 . Boulder, CO : WCET

Funding to develop the Technology Costing Methodology was provided by the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. http://www.ed.gov/programs/fipsecomp/index.html

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