The Use of Tracer Studies for Enhancing Relevance and Marketability in Online and Distance Education

Over the last two decades online and distance education has been greatly developed as a methodology for providing education for those who formerly may have found further education inaccessible for various reasons. As with most education processes, it is customary to have students complete an evaluation of the course or programme. This type of evaluation usually focuses on issues such as course content, the instructional material provided, the usability of the technology, and rating the performance of the course facilitators. In this writer’s opinion, this form of assessment focuses on the production process of ODL(Online and Distance Learning), rather than on the product of the learning process, which is the acquired knowledge and skills of the student. The ODL provider should know the fortunes of their graduates in order to make a complete assessment of how the educational process has impacted their graduates. With this type of data, they are able to make modifications that could enhance their students’ chances of achieving success. This paper looks at the tracer study as a means of maintaining curriculum relevance and of providing targeted benefits to graduates to enhance the marketability of ODL.