Using system dynamics to model and analyze a distance education program

Significant investments are being made into distance education programs around the world. Yet there is no clear understanding of the effectiveness of such programs, or what makes a distance education program successful. This is in part because the analysis of a distance education program involves studying the behaviour of a complex interactive system. It is therefore worthwhile identifying a suitable tool for a theoretical study of such systems. One such tool is system dynamics modeling, a powerful approach to understand the behaviour of a complex system over time. In this paper, we present a system dynamics simulation model of a distance education program at a leading engineering institute in India. We describe how the model is constructed from the individual components of the program and how a system dynamics approach is used to analyze the program. The results of the simulations helped us plan future investments of the distance education program.