INTRODUCTION

    The Scope Of This Paper

    A Broad Context For Distance and Virtual Education In The U.S.

VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY DEGREE PROGRAMS

    Free Standing "Virtual Universities"

    "Dual-Mode Distance Education Degree Programs

VIRTUAL SCHOOL PROGRAMS (K-12)

VIRTUAL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

    Engineering Education

    Teacher Education

    Health Services Education

VIRTUAL TRAINING PROGRAMS

    Work Force Training

    The Public Broadcasting Service

A DOUBLE GLASS CEILING

CONCLUSION

MEDIAGRAPHY
 

INTRODUCTION

The first generation was the introduction of "correspondence" education in the 1800s, especially its use by the land grant universities starting in the late 1800s to deliver agricultural education to farmers in rural areas.

The second generation came with the introduction of "television" to deliver educational opportunities to all people in their homes. This stage began with the commercial television offering of Sunrise Semester and Continental Classroom in the 1950s and expanded with the introduction on public broadcasting of more highly produced telecourses in the 1970s and 1980s, reaching its apex with the quality courses of the Annenberg/CPB Project in the 1980s and early 1990s.

The third generation began to emerge in the late 1980s when colleges and universities began to offer "on-line courses" sporadically, when the Internet was still largely funded by the U.S. government and was a "club" of university faculty and military personnel. This was an era of experimentation and searching for ways to use the "reach" of the Internet while still taking advantage of all that had been learned from the two preceding stages.

As we approach the end of the 20^th Century, distance education in the United States is entering its fourth generation with the introduction of complete "virtual programs" of study. Until institutions of higher education (IHEs, which includes both colleges and universities) achieved a critical mass of on-line courses, it was difficult to know what impact virtual education would have in the United States.

The programs described below share some common characteristics:

• They are complete programs, that is, they offer complete degrees or certificates or diplomas
• They rely entirely or substantially on information and communications technologies to deliver and support instruction
• They are all "leading edge," that is, they exemplify some of the more advanced applications of the pedagogical approaches and technologies being used in distance and virtual education today


While authors of reports on other areas of the world might focus on "virtual universities," this paper will focus on "virtual (degree) programs" instead. This reflects the condition of education in the U.S. today. For the most part, we do not have free-standing distance education institutions but rather distance education programs embedded within traditional institutions. Some might call these "dual mode" institutions. According to recent studies, approximately four out of five traditional IHEs now offer distance education courses, making most IHEs in the U.S. dual mode institutions.

This paper will focus primarily on distance and virtual education programs at the higher education level, although it will also describe a few applications at the elementary/ secondary level as well as applications in business and industry, primarily for professional development and work force training.

The purpose of the paper is to give the reader a snapshot of the scope and status of distance and virtual education in the United States at the start of 1999, as well as citations that will facilitate additional exploration by the reader. Most of the research for this paper was done on the World Wide Web.

(Note: Throughout this paper, Universal Resource Locators (URLs), electronic addresses, will be included to permit the reader to pursue additional information on sites and topics referenced. These URLs are valid Internet addresses as of March 1999. Due to the nature of the World Wide Web, and the re-structuring of Home Pages by Webmasters, the addresses might change by the time the reader seeks to access the referenced sites. If you get an "Error 404" or "Invalid Location" message when you try to access a site, try removing the last part of the address to at least get to the Home Page of the host organization.)

In this section, some broad trends in education in the United States are described to provide a context for better understanding the examples of distance and virtual education in later sections.

1. Interesting Educational Statistics. A few statistics about education in the United States will help provide a context for this discussion of virtual learning in the U.S. Contrary to what some might think, higher education is still not universal in the U.S.: 54.8% of the 160 million adults in the country have a high school diploma or less; 18.7% have some college but no degree; 19.3% have an Associate or Bachelor degree; and 7.2% have a graduate degree. (These and the following statistics are taken from The Chronicle Of Higher Education Almanac, August 26, 1998)


Higher education in the U.S. is highly diversified. There are no "national" universities funded and operated by the federal government. (A few specialized institutions, such as Gallaudet College for the Deaf, receive a major portion of their funding from the government but are run as independent institutions.) In all, there are 4,009 IHEs in the U.S.: 1,701 public and 2,308 private. They enroll a total of 14,367,520 students (86% of which are at the undergraduate level), and employ a total of approximately 1,000,000 faculty members. The combined annual budgets of the IHEs is $183 billion. Aside from providing grants and guaranteed loans to needy students, the federal government spends $12.2 billion per year on research and development at universities. State governments provide a total of $52.5 billion in operating funds and student aid. Together, the IHEs award about 1.7 million undergraduate degrees and 518,000 graduate degrees each year.

The age of higher education students in the U.S. has changed dramatically over the years. Whereas the traditional age of 18 to 24 year-olds used to constitute almost the entire university population, it is now only slightly more than half. In 1995, the latest year for which statistics are available, 56.5% of the higher education students were 18 to 24 year-olds; 39.5% were 25 to 49 year-olds; and 4.1% were over 50 years old.
 

2. A Kaleidoscope World: The Pervasiveness Of Change. One of the forces that is driving the expansion of distance and virtual learning in the United States is change: change in pedagogical thinking, change in the communications infrastructure throughout the country, and change in the capacity and functionality of information and communications technologies. The pace of change is so great that it is almost impossible to get a stable picture that will be valid for any length of time.


In the first place, our understanding of the nature of learning and the relationship between the learner and the educational institution is changing. At the lower levels (elementary and secondary schools), the emphasis is on learning that is student-centered, project-based, and activity-oriented. It is based largely on the pedagogical theory of the constructivists (i.e., that students must learn to construct new learning from disparate sources of information). At the higher education level, the change is reflected in a more "customer-centered" approach that affects not only how students are treated as they interact with the institution, but the very nature of the courses themselves, making them more practical, with content that the students can apply immediately in their jobs.

Second, the information and communications infrastructure in the U.S. has expanded greatly, to the point where most households have a full range of telecommunications technologies. The technologies are becoming an integral part of life in most households. It is not unusual, for example, for middle class households to have several television sets, cable television service, a couple of VCRs, one or more computers, two phone lines, a cell phone, video games, and more. It is important to note that educational applications are not driving the increased accessibility of these technologies. Commercial interests are driving their expansion. Educators are the beneficiaries of this expanded availability of the technologies.

Third, the technologies have experienced great expansion of functionality in recent years. Whereas in the past, cable television systems were limited to 12 channels, and computer storage was limited to 20 megabytes of storage, and telephone transmission of data was at a slow speed of 1200 baud, now the technologies have much greater capacity and functionality. Cable systems regularly carry 130 channels of programming and are expanding to offer telephony and high speed data access as well as television programs. Computer storage of 8 to 10 gigabytes and processing speeds of 400 megahertz are now available at reasonable prices. Data travel through telephone lines at up to 53 kilobytes per second. And we in the United States are blessed to have an affordable fixed-price telephone pricing system so that we can use the Internet for an unlimited amount of time each month for one low monthly charge. This is something that many other countries do not enjoy.

Furthermore, the technological differences among the media that once separated them from each other are quickly disappearing. The emergence of a single communications platform that supports the interoperability of technologies is no longer a pipe dream. We live in the "age of convergence."

The expanded capacity of the technology has also encouraged the development of new applications, most of which were stimulated by non-education interests, but which nevertheless hold promise for educational applications. Real Video, for example, was developed to "stream" live television and radio programming. But what potential it holds for educational applications! Likewise, video conferencing networks (such as the 400+ site Sprint Video Network) were developed to facilitate business meetings. But what potential they hold for remote site-based distance education!

(An interesting aside about "videoconferencing" vs. "web-delivered" instruction. Videoconferencing replicates the lecture mode that is familiar to most faculty. It is site-based and teacher-centered. Therefore, it tends to be more widely accepted by faculty than web-delivered instruction, which is student-centered and non-site-based.)

The telecommunications industry itself is stimulating further change. Industry jobs that did not even exist ten years ago now require training and work force upgrading annually, if not more often. This is having a major impact on the work force itself. For example, in a small area of Northern Virginia, there are 19,000 hi-tech jobs that are vacant because there are not workers with sufficient training to fill them.

All of these changes are converging to create a time of unprecedented opportunity for new ways to deliver and support educational opportunities. Virtual learning is a major beneficiary of the changes.
 

3. Growing Commercial Interest In Education. Commercialism is sweeping over higher education in the United States, from within and without. Higher education, and especially distance education, has become big business, and that has attracted commercial interests. If you doubt this, you need do nothing more than pick up The Chronicle Of Higher Education any week and look at its articles and advertisements. If you had happened to read the November 13, 1998 issue, you would have found an article ("Librarians' Newsletter Takes Aim at Commercial Publishers of Scholarly Journals") in which Mike Sosteric, an assistant professor at the Centre for Global and Social Analysis at Athabasca University in Canada, is quoted as saying: "(Higher education) is slowly and inexorably being turned into a venue for profit generation." That contention would have been bolstered by a reference to an article that appeared a couple of weeks earlier about a for-profit subsidiary that New York University is setting up to develop and offer distance education programs. NYU hopes to generate enough revenues from distance education courses to subsidize some of its higher-cost on-campus courses. They believe that the numbers of potential students world-wide support this expectation. As a precursor to this new development, NYU recently changed the name of its School of Continuing Education to the School of Continuing and Professional Education and, through its "Virtual College," has begun to offer on-line courses and degree programs in real estate (Bachelor of Science); publishing; management systems (Master of Science); hospitality, tourism, and travel administration; recreation and leisure studies (Bachelor of Science); and information technologies (Advanced Professional Certificate). Many other courses are in development.


NYU's perception of the growing market for distance education is shared by The Pennsylvania State University, which last year announced that it would establish World Campus to serve students worldwide. Perhaps adding fuel to the fire is the success being experienced by the University of Phoenix, a private virtual university that has seen its enrollments rise from 31,000 in 1992 to 48,000 in 1998. (More about the University of Phoenix below.)

The trend toward commercialism is further evident in advertisements that appear every week in The Chronicle. Hardly a week passes when Real Education (www.realeducation.com) does not have at least one full-page and several quarter-page ads welcoming new institutions that have contracted with the company to set up complete on-line degree programs. (The company claims to have more than 60 institutions on-line already.) Of note, Real Education guarantees to put 20 complete courses on-line in just 60 days and to create a complete "on-line campus" for the institution, including: a course catalog, academic calendar, inquiry and application forms, registration information, degree requirements, add/drop policies, admissions, financial aid and bursar office functions, administrative services, student services, faculty directory, academic advising, career counseling, bookstore functions, and a student union.

Real Education is not alone in this field. The same issues of The Chronicle often feature ads from the Pangaea network ("the world's first online service wholly devoted to education and training"), which will develop "a virtual campus devoted to reaching and teaching unserved students locally, nationally, and internationally" (www.pangaeanetwork.com). In the same issue, one is likely to see a half-page ad by Microsoft, Prentice-Hall, and Real Education, announcing a series of free workshops (held in more than 20 cities throughout the U.S.) in which the attendees can "learn how to enroll more students by creating an online campus," by "outsourcing the delivery of your campus and courses."

Earlier in 1998, The Chronicle had an article describing how the Caliber Learning Network (www.caliberlearning.com), a joint venture of Sylvan Learning Systems and the telecommunications giant, MCI Communications, was positioning itself to expand greatly its teacher education and other professional development courses that are delivered nationwide by satellite, videoconferencing, and personal computer networks to learners located at their places of business and in shopping malls.

AT&T, the long distance telephone giant, has established the AT&T Learning Network, and through the network has assembled a "Virtual Academy" (www.tramline.com) "to help address the growing need teachers have to access professional development opportunities in new ways." AT&T has tapped several institutions with distance education programs to provide in-service professional development opportunities for teachers. The participating institutions include: Western Governors University; Penn State's World Campus, George Washington University, Montana State University, and T.H.E. Institute. The "Premier Courses" that these institutions are providing help teachers meet two requirements: to effectively integrate technology in their classrooms, and to maintain their professional credentials with relevant and timely content.

These companies are but a small part of a rapidly growing field of commercial companies that are tapping into what they see as a large and growing source of revenue, distance higher education and professional education. Others include IBM, with its e-business Solutions program (www.ibm.com/e-business), Lotus (now a subsidiary of IBM), with its LearningSpace platform (www.lotus.com/learningspace), International Thompson Publishing's World Class Learning (www.worldclasslearning.com) ("anytime, anywhere for any learner, from any instructor" courses), and Embanet, a small Canadian company that is wooing U.S. institutions (www.embanet.com). Some few are marketing isolated computer applications; most are selling complete turnkey solutions in which they receive a continuing revenue stream from the tuition generated.
 

4. The Importance Of Partnerships And Alliances. When information and communications technologies first started to become available to IHEs, and the Internet was a friendly faculty-led environment, some IHEs began to explore ways to transfer some of their courses to this new medium. At first, it seemed simple, quick, and inexpensive. However, as those institutions gained experience with the process, they began to realize that if they were to serve students well, it was not sufficient to create "shovelware" courses (i.e., old class notes just shoveled into an electronic format). They began to apply instructional design principles to the process. And the cost and timelines began to grow. Soon, the institutions realized that if they were to use the power of the new technologies to their fullest, they could not do it alone. It made sense to "partner" with other like-minded institutions and commercial companies that had skills that the IHEs lacked. Thus, new alliances of institutions and companies began to emerge. Some are "direct" alliances, such as universities joining together to develop and offer a new degree program. Others are "third-party" alliances, such as the 180 institutions that cooperatively offer degrees through the Public Broadcasting Service/ Adult Learning Service's "Going The Distance" program (www.pbs.org/adultlearning). This has given rise to a whole new industry of "third-party" facilitators of distance and virtual education.

5. A New Learning Paradigm For Virtual Learning. As IHEs got more experience with offering virtual courses, some began to realize that the new delivery platforms demanded a new paradigm of learning. It was no longer feasible to use the "sage on the stage" paradigm of traditional education. The learners needed to play a much more active role and they needed wide flexibility in when and how they accessed the faculty member, other students, and instructional resources. The role of the faculty member had to change. The types and quality of instructional resources that support learning had to move beyond the traditional textbook model.

Many institutions have tried various new approaches, and the search continues. One paradigm that holds great promise is the model of "The Four Conversations." The model places a strong emphasis on the dialogic nature of learning. It maintains that all learning consists of four types of dialog:

a. the "conversations" a learner has with an instructor;

b. the "conversations" among groups of learners;

c. the "conversations" a learner has with instructional resources; and,

d. the "conversations" a learner has with him/herself (i.e., reflection).

The challenge for communications-based distance and virtual education programs is to make appropriate use of communications technologies to support each of the four dialogs. An assessment of distance and virtual education programs would examine: how well the programs facilitate the learner communicating with the instructor (asynchronously or in real time); how the learner can contact other students to discuss issues and study together; how the learner has access to the instructional resources of the course and the tools needed to use those resources; and how the program encourages the student to assemble and reflect on the information gotten through the first three conversations.
 

6. Focus On A "Whole Cloth" (Systems) Approach. The developers of early distance education programs tended to focus exclusively on the development, packaging, and delivery of course materials. As IHEs have gotten more experience, and as they have felt the need to provide greater customer service, they have expanded greatly their vision of what is needed to have a quality distance education program. In recent years, in part fueled by federal government programs (especially the Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education – FIPSE) (www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/FIPSE) and some private foundations, IHEs have begun to devote as much attention to student support services as to the course materials – support services such as on-line course and program information, on-line registration, on-line access to library resources, on-line ordering from a bookstore, on-line access to financial aid information, easily accessible counseling service, and other non-academic services that are normally available to on-campus learners. The idea behind these efforts is that the distance learner is not a second-class enrollee; s/he should have all the services of the institution as easily available as the course materials themselves.

7. A Trend Toward "Unbundling" Of The Educational Process. Reference to some of the advertisements from The Chronicle cited above suggest that IHEs might want to "outsource" some of the services they provide to learners. This is part of the trend toward "unbundling" of certain aspects of the traditional academic program. Until recently, the university was a self-contained society. Faculty members developed courses and course materials, offered the courses, and assessed student performance. The university provided pre-enrollment, enrollment, financial aid, record-keeping, and transcription services. It also provided instructional support services such as a library, computer labs, bookstore, and student union, complete with club houses, dining rooms and restaurants, and meeting places. Many provide complete housing service. More recently, universities have begun to examine this process and ask which are the "core" functions that must be done by the university and which functions might be "outsourced" to other organizations or companies that might do them more efficiently. Many, if not most, universities today contract with food-service companies to operate the dining rooms and restaurants on campus. Many are turning their bookstore operations over to commercial companies. Many are contracting out the maintenance of campus facilities.


Until now, all of the outsourcing of services has been in the business and administrative area. It is only now that some universities have begun to consider unbundling instructional services. (This is not entirely true since most universities have continued to rely on textbook publishers to develop the core instructional materials for classes – the textbook – although always giving the instructor absolute discretion on how those instructional materials are assembled for each class.) Some universities today are considering outsourcing student support services such as counseling and financial aid. A few are even examining the feasibility of unbundling some of the "core" instructional services, such as assessment, and outsourcing that to other organizations. (The latter is especially true for some few universities that are working closely with employers to develop tailored degree programs.)
 

8. Other Driving Forces Behind Virtual Learning. Some of the forces that are driving the development of virtual learning in the U.S. can be seen in the sections immediately above. Others include:

• Available and affordable hardware – Increasingly, people throughout the United States are acquiring telecommunications technologies and services to use in all aspects of life.
• User-friendly software – In the past, software users had to have special training to use the software effectively. Now, most software is being made much more user friendly so that you can open the box and begin using it within minutes, learning about its full functionality as you use the application.
• An evolving vision of the possible – Until recently, it was difficult to imagine how disparate technologies could be brought together into a single delivery system. When that vision became possible, it was even more difficult to imagine the changes that had to be made in course materials and student support services. Now, as more and more educators exchange their experiences, some shared visions are beginning to emerge.
• Affluence of individuals and institutions – There is no doubt that the past several years have been good economically for the United States. This means that individuals have more disposable income to spend on education and the technological infrastructure needed to obtain it at a distance. It also means that educational institutions have more resources (from increased tax revenues and tuition fees) to put into program and course development.
• Learner mobility – Ever since the development of the inter-state highway system in the United States in the 1950s, worker mobility has increased to the point where it is not uncommon for 20% of the U.S. population to move every year for job-related reasons. This has made it difficult for learners to complete degrees at a single institution. It has also led many colleges and universities to seek ways to serve their learners at a distance, no matter where they might relocate.
• Skilled and trained course developers – More and more colleges and universities are hiring staff in new positions to support technology-assisted instruction. These individuals often bring new skills and perspectives to the institution, especially new ideas on course development, the creation of learning materials, and delivery means.
• Equity issues – One of the great concerns in the U.S. is that the expansion of virtual learning programs might increase the gaps between the "haves" and the "have-nots." There does not seem to be an easy answer to this dilemma. While much of the rhetoric around distance education (open to all, easy access, anywhere/anytime, etc.) suggests that it is a great equalizer, the practice suggests otherwise. Distance education appears to be more appropriate for "advantaged" learners, those who are highly motivated, already have good learning skills, and have easy access to the technologies. Face-to-face instruction is more supportive of learners with poor learning skills and those with low self-esteem.
• Improved course development/management software – In the not too distant past, when a faculty member wanted to offer a distance education course, s/he had to develop it completely from scratch, often without much help. The burden on the faculty member was great, and the burn-out rate was high. Now, there are many affordable and easy-to-use software packages that relieve the faculty member of many of the burdens of developing and offering courses on-line (e.g., First Class, Top Class, WebCT).
• An attitude of customer service – As colleges and universities have had to compete to attract students to their programs, they have begun to adopt some of the business practices of successful companies. Companies such as LL Bean, the mail order company, and Nordstrom Department store, have built their reputations (and their successes) on customer service – making it as enjoyable and as easy as possible for the customer to buy their goods. In the latter case, the first sales person you meet in the store will go throughout the store picking out anything you'd like while you wait in the first department enjoying a refreshing drink. Taking their cue from this approach to service, many colleges and universities are now instituting "one-stop service centers," where students can have all their questions answered and conduct all their transactions with the university.
• "Just-in-time" thinking – This is another cue that colleges and universities are taking from the business world. Whereas in the past, many businesses used to build large inventories of their goods in order to keep their factories operating at a high level, increasingly today they are producing only what is needed to meet the immediate demand. (For example, Dell Computers, one of the fastest-growing U.S. companies today, keeps only a seven-day inventory of its product, something that would have been unheard of a decade ago.) This not only reduces their production costs but also their warehousing and distribution costs. Colleges and universities are emulating this practice by creating and offering only the courses they need to meet the immediate demand. And, if they create and produce their own course materials, they are producing them in just the numbers they need to serve the students they anticipate in the immediate future.
• Entrepreneurial spirit – Perhaps one of the most important forces that is driving the development of distance education and virtual learning is the spirit of entrepreneurship that is in the hearts of many of the leaders of the field. In some cases, this is demanded by the institution, which often require distance education programs to be self-supporting. Only an entrepreneur with a strong sense of business could know how to assess the needs of the marketplace, develop products (courses and programs) to meet those needs, deliver them conveniently, support them with solid service, and price them appropriately.


The purpose of this rather lengthy section has not been to provide a comprehensive view of developments in higher education or distance and virtual learning in the United States, but rather to highlight some of the trends that are taking place in higher education as a context for appreciating the distance and virtual learning programs that are described below. 

VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY DEGREE PROGRAMS

A recent study by the Western Cooperative for Educational Communications (WCET), a program of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) (www.wiche.edu), documented the extent to which 1,400 of the nation's 3,000 colleges and universities offer distance education courses and programs. The study found that 79% of all the institutions offer one or more distance education course (broadly defined to include correspondence courses, telecourses, Web-based courses, site-to-site videoconferencing, and other delivery modes), and one-third offer one or more complete degree programs at a distance. Those data are consistent with the findings of other recent studies. Most of those institutions offering complete distance education program do so as an extension of their campus-based programs, which continue to dominate their mission. Only a few U.S. IHEs, such as National Technological University, Western Governors University, and the University of Phoenix, can be considered to be "virtual universities" in the sense that other countries have such institutions.

Interest in virtual learning at the university level is so great that many traditional universities are rushing to create Web-based courses just so that they can say they are offering virtual learning opportunities. The interest has also spawned the development of a new monthly on-line journal, the Virtual University Gazette (www.geteducated.com/ vugaz.htm) that tracks new programs not only at universities but also those offered by the professions and business and industry. The Gazette is published by Vicky Phillips, CEO of Lifelong Learning (Waterbury, VT), a distance learning consulting firm.

Phillips has also co-authored, with Cindy Yager, The Best Distance Learning Graduate Schools, a 322-page publication that profiles 195 accredited graduate schools that offer complete degrees at a distance. Published by The Princeton Review and Random House Publishers, (www.randomhouse.com) the 1999 edition has several chapters of advice for the reader, on such topics as what to look for in distance education programs, how to select among delivery technologies, and how to seek financial aid to pay for the degree. The publication includes degree programs that are delivered through the Internet, videocassettes, audiocassettes, broadcast and cable television, and computer technologies. It also includes a chapter on corporate-sponsored graduate degree programs.

Some of the virtual degree programs chosen for inclusion in this chapter as leading edge programs are offered by "virtual universities," others are offered by "dual-mode" institutions.

Regents College

"We believe that what a person knows is more important than how or where that knowledge was gained. Since 1971, we have been providing adult learners the means to demonstrate and validate the learning they have achieved, whether by traditional college classroom study, college-level proficiency examinations, or evaluated military and industry training."

Regents grants its credits and degrees by evaluating the student's prior learning, offering exams for various courses, and "banking" credit earned through various other pathways. The College currently offers 30 Associate and Bachelor degrees in Business, Liberal Arts, Nursing, and Technology. A Master of Arts Degree in Liberal Studies has just been added.

A large portion of the Regents College student body is comprised of members of the U.S. military community. Because they are transferred often, military personnel have often found it difficult to pursue college degrees. Regents overcomes that barrier by recognizing credit earned at any U.S. regionally accredited IHE as well as training courses sponsored by the Department of Defense, other government agencies, and business and industry. Credit award is based on the recommendations of the American Council of Education (ACE), and the College awards over 50,000 college credits annually for military experience alone. Since 1971, over 79,000 adult learners have earned Regents College degrees, and more than 33,000 of those graduates (42%) are military service members.

Regents College currently enrolls approximately 17,400 students per year. About 11,000 of them are pursuing Nursing degrees (making Regents the largest Nursing program in the United States); 4,000 are in Liberal Arts; 1,300 are in Business, and 1,100 are in Technology.

Regents offers a wide range of support services for its students. Its "Electronic Peer Network" supports Discussion Groups (allowing members to participate in threaded discussions related to areas of study and special interests), Chat Rooms (allowing students to participate in real-time discussions with other students), and a Student Directory (facilitating contact among students). In development are a Book Exchange (allowing students to buy and sell used books for courses), a Message Board, and a Distance Learning Center (which will contain student ratings of distance courses and examinations taken from U.S. colleges and universities).

In recent years, Regents College has greatly expanded the availability of its course examinations by partnering with Sylvan Technology Centers. Through those Centers, Regents College exams are available six days per week throughout the United States and in Canada, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, Saipan (Northern Mariana Island), and the Virgin Islands. The College has also partnered with Specialty Books, one of the nation's leading collegiate bookstore operators, to provide its students with access to almost 600,000 course books and computer software that they can order by a toll-free phone call, with shipment promised within 24 hours.

Regents College is sensitive to the fact that most of its students are working people with limited resources. Accordingly, they try to keep their costs low. For instance, the current fee for evaluation of a potential student's prior learning portfolio is $150, and half of that will be credited toward enrollment fees if the student decides to enroll in the College.

National Technological University

Today, National Technological University is a cooperative effort by 50 major universities to provide graduate and continuing education for today's busy professionals and managers. The member universities are linked by satellite telecommunication and compressed digital video technology to more than 1,000 work locations internationally, and by interconnections to other regional networks to another 350 sites in North America.

By means of instructional television, professional workers can remain at their job sites and tune in to courses offered by top faculty and experts of the nations' leading engineering schools and other organizations. In 1996-97, they were able to choose from more than 500 academic courses providing 22,000 hours of instruction, plus another 500 days or 3,000 hours of continuing education. In that same year, 1,300 working professionals and managers were admitted to NTU degree programs. Continuing education enrollment exceeded 110,000.

NTU offers 14 master's degree programs designed specifically for technical professionals. It does not award bachelors or doctoral degrees. All academic courses offered by NTU are delivered on NTU's instructional television network via satellite to member organizations located around the world. There is no resident campus. There is a one-time fee for access to the NTU Network, which does not include the tuition and registration fees for courses taken at the site.

University Of Phoenix

Today, with over 53,000 students, the University of Phoenix promotes itself as the largest private accredited university for working adults. It has provided degree and certificate programs to more than 371,000 persons in the United States, Puerto Rico and dozens of foreign countries.

The cornerstone of the University of Phoenix's educational philosophy is the recognition of the distinction between the younger student (still deciding on a career) and the adult student (who has already established personal and professional goals). They have developed academic programs that allow mature students to benefit from the integration of work and school. Most of the University's faculty members are working practitioners, experts in their field.

The University of Phoenix offers graduate and undergraduate degree programs and certificate programs, many of them on-line. It has structured its courses so that students take one course each five to eight weeks because research shows that adults learn best in an atmosphere of concentrated immersion. The program runs throughout the calendar year, allowing students to start anytime at their convenience.

Courses are offered on-site at University of Phoenix learning centers situated in fourteen states several foreign countries, as well as through the World Wide Web.

The University of Phoenix is owned by the Apollo Group, a company that is listed on the NASDAQ stock market.

Western Governors University

Here is how Western Governors University (WGU) portrays itself to students:

WGU is a real university, just without a physical campus. What that means to our students is that there are no limits. You can take some of the best courses from institutions all across the country, all without ever leaving home!

One interesting aspect of Western Governors University is that the initiative to create it came from the Governors of thirteen states who recognized that they could not individually afford to provide sufficient continuing education opportunities to adults in their states. So, they pooled their resources to create a single, region-wide institution.

Another interesting aspect of WGU is that the administration chose not to try to develop and operate all the subsystems of the university within the university itself. One of the first steps they took in creating the university was to solicit proposals for the development of the "SmartCatalog," the library, and the university bookstore. They were among the forerunners in implementing the idea of "unbundling" and "outsourcing" selected university functions. WGU even outsources its instructional program, with courses being provided by about two dozen "education providers."

The academic program of Western Governors University is young and expanding. Currently it consists of an Associate of Applied Science in Electronic Manufacturing Technology and an Associate of Arts degree program, as well as many individual courses taught by faculty members and professionals at institutions and corporations that are participants in WGU.

The September 25, 1998 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a story about WGU under the headline, "Few Students Enroll at Western Governors U." Was this an early warning signal that the bloom was off distance and virtual education? The story reported that only 75 persons had applied for admission in first the two weeks after the University opened its World Wide Web site for enrollment! The University had projected that up to 5,000 students would enroll in its first year. They were certainly off to a slow start. University officials said computer glitches were partly to blame (some people were prevented from connecting to the site for ten days). They also pointed to the fact that the University had already filled thousands of requests for information by mail prior to the initiation of the Web site. (Author's note: the University did not have a very effective campaign to promote the opening of its Web site for enrollment. It might take some time before the University's name is firmly embedded in the various search engines that learners use to find such opportunities.)

California Virtual University

The institutional response to the California Virtual University idea by the IHEs in the state has been swift and strong. When it was launched in the beginning of 1998, 65 public and private accredited colleges and universities were listed in the University catalog, offering about 800 distance education courses. Six months later, the participation had grown to 95 institutions offering about 1,600 courses. Ultimately, 240 colleges and universities are expected to participate in CVU within the next three years.

Like the Western Governors University, the California Virtual University has strong support from the state's governor. Also like the WGU, there is indication that CVU will continue to "unbundle" the traditional functions of the university. Not only will it rely entirely on its participating institutions for the instructional component, it has now turned the operation of its Web catalog of on-line courses to a non-profit foundation that was formed by educators. The California Virtual University Foundation includes the state's main university systems (the University of California, California State University, and California Community College organization) and several corporations, such as Sun, Cisco Systems, Pacific Bell, Oracle, and International Thomson Publishing, each of which has contributed $75,000 to the project.

Concord University School of Law

Concord University School of Law (www.concord.kaplan.edu) is a new institution established by Kaplan Educational Centers in October 1998 to offer a juris doctorate degree wholly online via state-of-the-art technology. The target learners are working students, professionals, family caretakers, learners in rural communities, and others whose circumstances prevent them from pursuing a legal education at traditional institutions. The degree is a four-year graduate program.

Students will view lectures on the Internet at their own convenience 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The lectures will be presented using streaming technology. Students will have on-line access to a law library to complete their assignments and fulfill curriculum requirements, including case studies, legal arguments, and statutory codes. They will also take interactive exams online.

In establishing Concord University, Kaplan, a subsidiary of The Washington Post, is building on its years of expertise in offering LSAT preparation classes that help students succeed in law school. The University will complement Kaplan's 1,200 study centers in the U.S. and abroad, where it offers test preparation, training, and career fairs.

Colorado: A Hotbed Of Distance And Virtual Learning.

Asynchronous interaction with the faculty and other classmates can occur through a number of resources and paths: the Internet/World Wide Web, FAX, or telephone. Each student in the program is now required to have access to a computer and to the Internet.

Another Colorado distance education program is Colorado Community College Online (www.ccc.live.realed.com), which is composed of the 13 colleges in the Colorado Community College and Occupational Education System (CCCOES). Through CCC Online, students can earn fully accredited Associate of Applied Science Degrees and Certificates in various disciplines (Business, Occupational Safety, Emergency Management and Planning). CCC Online enhances instructional services to students by offering on-line communication with faculty and fellow students who may be anywhere in the world.

Students may take courses "anytime-anywhere" at their convenience. CCCOES colleges have standing transfer agreements with most of the four-year public and private colleges in Colorado. In addition, there are transfer agreements with colleges both in-state and out-of-state which offer Baccalaureate completion programs also using distance/electronic technology. Among these are Regis University, Governor's State University, and International University.

University of Maine System -- UNET

Through UNET, students can pursue a variety of Associate, Bachelor, and Masters degree programs, as well as certificate programs. Most of the courses are site-based, although some have been converted to Web-based courses that are offered through the WebCT software application.

Private Virtual Degree Programs On The Drawing Board

The rapid growth of interest in distance education and its apparent acceptance by a growing segment of the higher education community has led to the emergence of several new, private, for-profit virtual universities that are in various stages of becoming accredited universities.

Magellan University (www.magellan.edu) was established a couple of years ago and now claims to offer 70 courses. Their on-line catalog lists 14 short courses in advanced mathematics, six courses leading to Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) certification (total cost is between $2,000 and $4,300 depending on whether it is taken entirely over the Web or in part in the classroom), and over 50 "flexible-length" courses in desktop software training (e.g., Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel). College credit is currently available only for the MCSE courses through a partnership with Pima Community College, in Tucson, Arizona. The University has been in the process of developing its own degree programs for some time.

Another new institution is Athena University (www.athena.edu), which is administered by VOU Services International. Virtual Online University (VOU) was established in 1994 and has been offering online teaching since the World Wide Web was privatized. In 1997 it was reorganized and re-incorporated into VOU Services International to reflect its consultations and collaborations with colleges and universities worldwide. With offices located in Columbia, Missouri, VOUSI has established collaborations with institutions in China, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Athena University is a non-profit institution founded to provide high-quality educational opportunities on the Internet as inexpensively as possible. (Tuition is currently only $100 per credit hour.) Its focus is on providing an integrated, interdisciplinary curriculum in the Liberal Arts. It provides Bachelor degrees in History, Languages, and Math, Science and Computers, and a Masters in Business Administration. It is not clear from the literature whether Athena University is an accredited institution.
  
VIRTUAL SCHOOL PROGRAMS (K-12)

For the past century and a half, the U.S. has built a system of elementary and secondary education (K-12) based on the principle of local and state control of schools. The federal role in education is minimal, and the federal contribution to elementary and secondary education is less than 10% of the total cost. Consequently, the U.S. does not have a tradition of national schools. That might change because of the availability of information and communications technologies and the impact they are having on education in the U.S.

Nevertheless, there is a need for some instructional services that might be shared by local schools, services that are too expensive for schools to afford individually. There is also a need for teacher training that cuts across traditional school district boundaries. The latter need has been magnified by the recent adoption of New Academic Standards in most subject areas, thereby necessitating in-service education for all current school teachers and new formation programs for pre-service teachers.

Home schooling, a fast-growing phenomenon in the U.S., has created an additional market for companies that are providing or contemplating the development of K-12 instructional programs that take advantage of information and communications technologies.

The virtual learning programs chosen as examples in this section are considered to be leading edge programs because of the infrastructure they are putting in place or the potential impact they will have on the way elementary and secondary education is offered in the 21^st Century.

The Star Schools Project

Since 1988, millions of students have enrolled in courses (such as Physics, Biology, Advanced Algebra, Calculus, Japanese, Russian) that they would previously never have been able to take. It is estimated that in one year the Star Schools program serves more than 1.5 million students in all 50 states in the U.S. In recent years, Star Schools projects have included instructional modules, video field trips, enrichment activities and semester-long and year-long courses. Through Star Schools, students can question astronauts about the principles of physics. Japanese- and German-language students can talk with native speakers and visit Japan and Germany through live and interactive teleconferences. For most students served, distance learning is their only access to science, math, foreign language and advanced placement courses.

The Universal Service Fund

The Fund was created to make telecommunications services affordable for every school and library. A school or library will receive discounts of 20% to 90% (the exact amount depends on the number of disadvantaged students in a school or community) on telecommunications services, internal connections, and Internet access. Discounts are applied to the full price, and the school or library will pay for the portion of the price that remains after the discounts are applied. The portion of the price that is discounted will be paid from the program fund directly to the service provider.

Universal Service Fund discounts can be applied to a school's or library's internal connections, telecommunications services, and Internet access. Although the Fund will not pay for desktop computers, learning software, or teacher/librarian training, schools and libraries can use the funds they save on telecommunications infrastructure to support these elements of a comprehensive technology plan.

One benefit of the Fund that is already being seen is that it has forced schools and school districts to develop long-term technology plans.

Florida High School And The Florida Distant Learning Network

Florida High School's first students enrolled for courses that began in January 1999.

At the same time, the state of Florida has also created the Florida Distant Learning Network (FDLN) (www.firn.edu/fdln) to assure its citizens access to advanced telecommunications services that will complement the provision of educational and health care services. The idea behind the legislation establishing FDLN was to establish a coordinated system for cost-efficient advanced telecommunication services and distance education. The mission statement of FDLN requires the organization to:

• increase student access to education;
• maximize the use of advanced telecommunications services and their application to provide affordable distance education;
• promote interagency cooperation and promote partnerships;
• secure any available federal or private funds and other resources in support of advanced telecommunications services and distance education; and,
• coordinate all advanced telecommunications services and distance education resources to maximize return on investment with the goal of creating a financially independent, self-supporting, statewide resource for advanced telecommunications services and distance education.

California Distant Learning Program

CDLP seeks to recognize the unique interests and learning styles of each student. Because of this uniqueness, CDLP offers options to parents and students in order to design a specific plan for each child that is age, interest, and academically appropriate. The curricula include Natural Learning Rhythms, a holistic curriculum offering age-appropriate teaching techniques; a multi-sensory curriculum based on hands-on learning activities; and a traditional academic curriculum suggesting skills a student should address or master at each grade level. Parents, students, and a CDLP resource teacher coordinate and co-create a course of study based on each student's interests and skills level.

CDLP is part of the public school system. Any parent who is a resident of California may enroll their child with the CDLP if they are not enrolled in another public school.

Cable In The Classroom

While not a virtual learning institution in itself, CIC provides teachers throughout the U.S. with vast multimedia resources that can be used in distance and virtual learning. The resources cover most subjects and all grade levels. For example, Nickelodeon offers programming and support materials for young children; the Arts and Entertainment channel offers, among other things, biographies that are appropriate for use in high school courses. Some of the program networks, such as Discovery, have gone to great lengths to correlate their broadcast programs to the New Academic Standards and have placed those correlations and extensive curriculum materials on their Web sites. The CIC Web site is a "gateway" to the Web sites of all the cable program networks.

As cable companies gear up to offer Internet service through high-speed cable modems, they have extended their commitment to education to include one free cable modem to each school that is passed by the new service. They also have funded the expansion of CIC's training program to create the CIC Professional Development Institute which will, starting in 1999, train between 50,000 and 75,000 teachers each year to integrate not only video technologies but also the Internet and World Wide Web effectively into their classes.

University of Pennsylvania High School To College Program

PennAdvance courses are delivered in collaboration with the Sylvan Academy (and its Caliber Learning Network) (www.sylvanlearning.com) and are taught with a combination of advanced technologies that create powerful learning experiences for every student. The courses use a combination of broadcast delivery and World Wide Web-based support to allow students to receive an Ivy League learning experience in multiple cities across the country -- without requiring the students to travel to the university in Philadelphia.

A live broadcast is delivered to students weekly at a Caliber Learning Center in their neighborhood. Instructors and students interact live with each other across the country through Caliber's combination of satellite broadcasting, two-way video conferencing, and computer networking. In between the weekly broadcasts, the course Web site extends the learning experience. Using live chat, email, and threaded discussions, the Web site functions as a communications center. Each student can get the help s/he needs from the instructors and from fellow students. Homework and quizzes are submitted online for instant grading, and the entire course syllabus, lecture notes, practice problems, and reference materials are always available to the student through the Web site. 

VIRTUAL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

Columbia University offers something rare ... a chance to travel to one of the world's great universities and study with the brightest minds in their fields without leaving your community, your family, or your job. Columbia Video Network brings graduate engineering education to you. Columbia Video Network is a distance learning gateway to Columbia University's Graduate School of Engineering. CVN students earn the same credits and degrees as their on-campus counterparts.

Degree programs are offered in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Engineering Management Systems, and Materials Science.

The Columbia Video Network (CVN) was established in 1986 to meet a growing need for flexible graduate engineering education delivered to the working professional. CVN was specifically designed to address the needs of busy engineers who wish to continue their professional education and development without having to return to campus. CVN promises its virtual students the same benefits and privileges of a Columbia Education enjoyed by on-campus students.

Virtual learners (Columbia calls them "off-campus students") enroll in Columbia courses taught by Columbia University professors, have full access to Columbia University faculty, and the same Columbia University degree as on-campus students. CVN delivers course lectures to off-campus students by videotape or through videoconferencing, while course materials and syllabi can be easily accessed on the World Wide Web.

The courses are delivered through software that enables group collaboration, allowing students to contribute at home, at work or while traveling, at any time or place of their choosing. Discussions are text-based and unfold over the course of hours or days. Students have the opportunity to converse and work with classmates whose geographical locations may span regional and possibly national borders.

In California, there is a major effort under way to provide basic credential classes to the many elementary school teachers who are being hired without credentials. The California State University System has developed the Distributed Learning Network in conjunction with Simon Schuster Publishing, KCET public television station, and Los Angeles County classroom teachers to create video course modules in reading methods, mainstreaming of special education students, classroom management, educational technology, and cross cultural language and academic development strategies. Those courses are aired statewide and are supplemented with e-mail, telephone conferences, and a dedicated Web page for each course.

VIRTUAL TRAINING PROGRAMS

Not all business training programs provide virtual learning opportunities. However, since many businesses in this day of global commerce have operations scattered throughout the world, many are turning to distance and virtual learning to continually upgrade the skills of their scattered workforce and to educate their customers about the benefits of new products as they are introduced. Consequently, corporate training programs range from internal staff development to wide-scale customer education. A few exemplary programs provide some sense of the vast range of training applications.

For example, Ford Motor Company recently received an award from One Touch Systems for training a total of 405,980 worker-students in 1997. The U.S. Social Security Administration, which operates the largest and busiest interactive video training network in the federal government, received an award for the most participants in one class -- 1,408 students. JC Penny Company was cited for having the most student interactions in one class. These are three large organizations that are regularly using information and communications technologies to train vast cohorts of their work force.

Many companies have begun to use the information and communications technologies to deliver training in those same technologies at a distance. It is now possible, for example, to take complete certificate training programs on-line and to become certified as a Microsoft Engineer or a Novel Network Administrator.

Digital Think (www.digitalthink.com) is a new privately financed company (founded in San Francisco CA, in March 1996) that promotes itself as a "Web-based trainer." Its courses create an online community of students, tutors, and instructors, in classes that are "more interactive than textbooks and much more convenient than brick-and-mortar, fixed-time classroom instruction."

Digital Think contracts with best-selling authors and topic experts to create original content for Web-based courses. In addition to the role played by the instructors, tutors answer email messages and engage in threaded discussions and chat sessions with the students. Digital Think sells Web-based courses directly from its Web site and to corporate training departments. Course prices currently range from $125 to $450 per student.

Digital Think's training courses are offered for Continuing Education Units (CEUs) which are convertible to college credit under an arrangement that the company has with the University of Phoenix (see the Virtual University Degree Programs section above).

Digital Think is not alone in offering such courses. Dowling College Institute (www.dowling.edu), located in New York, offers a suite of Microsoft Office training programs via e-mail and on-line. It has served students from all over the world. Each course consists of fifteen or sixteen lessons and costs $60.

QuickStart Technologies (www.quickstart.com/etraining) provides online access to the tools and study materials necessary to prepare for Microsoft certification exams. Those resources can also be used to just brush up on product knowledge. The courses are highly affordable at a cost of $199 per student for unlimited 90-day access to the virtual campus.

Wang Global Virtual University now provides Internet training and mentoring programs to its work force of over 2,500 Microsoft Certified Professionals through Scholars.com (www.scholars.com), and will be providing technical training to its 15,000 technical consultants worldwide through the same platform.

Many other companies are making similar uses of information and communications technologies to train their work force and to introduce their products to customers.

In 1996 PBS, seeing another need and an opportunity, established The Business Channel (www.pbstbc.com). It offers a wide variety of workshops and short courses that it markets to businesses throughout the U.S. The Business Channel evolved from PBS's Adult Learning Satellite Service, which had been offering such programs to businesses by satellite delivery on a subscription basis since the late 1980s. The Business Channel is now an interesting mix of satellite delivery and Web-based instruction.

One strand of instruction delivered by The Business Channel is an executive education program that has been developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The increasing complexity of modern organizations has created a demand for continuous education for executives, and PBS and MIT have joined forces to fill that demand. Typically, one course is offered each month, as shown in the following satellite broadcast schedule:

January 19, 1999: Supply Chain Management

February 4, 1999: Economic Concepts for the Sales Professional

March 2, 1999: Internet Commerce: Turning Hype Into Reality

May 25, 1999: Project Management

September 7, 1999: Advanced Internet Commerce: Corporate Strategies

In total, The PBS Business Channel offers approximately 800 training programs in areas such as executive education, leadership, change, sales and service, computers, human resources, and team building. They are marketed to businesses rather than to individual learners. The video component is delivered via a Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) dish that is installed at the workplace. The video lessons are enhanced by rich resources on The Business Channel Web site.

A DOUBLE GLASS CEILING

Most distance and virtual education programs in the United States to date have run up against a double-pane ceiling – two barriers that are often not apparent but present real barriers to further development of the programs. The first barrier is that they are technology-driven. The programs themselves are often initiated because a new technology becomes available (e.g., a videoconferencing facility, a new television production studio, etc.). Even those that have pedagogical starting points often become "tracked" into a process that uses one or two technologies which invariably introduce limitations to the program.

The second barrier is that the distance and virtual education programs adopt a traditional pedagogical paradigm. They create a learning environment that closely resembles the roles, processes, and resources found in face-to-face learning programs.

In succumbing to these two barriers, distance and virtual education programs fail to take full advantage of a range of resources available to the instructor and learner alike. Furthermore, they fail to employ the full power of some of the new information and communications technologies to support improved pedagogical approaches.

Those who are inclined to doubt the existence of this double glass ceiling should consider the examples shown in the grid below. It shows clearly that most of today's distance and virtual education programs are technology-driven and based on a traditional academic paradigm. The reader is encouraged to plug other distance and virtual education programs into the grid. The author is especially interested in learning about programs that might appropriately fall into the lower right quadrant of the grid.

                                     Traditional Paradigm---------------------------------------------------New Paradigm

Technology-driven /\ | | | |	(a) (a)  (a) (a) (b) (b)  (b) (b) (b) (c) (c) (c)  (c) (c) (c) (d) (d) (d)  (d) (d) (d) (d)		(e) (e) (e)
| | | | | | |		(f) (f) (f)  (f) (f) (f) (g) (g) (g)  (g) (g) (g)	(h) (h) (h)
| | | | \/ Consumer driven		(j) (j)	(k) (k)

Notes:

(a) Educational television programming of the 1950s, such as Sunrise Semester

(b) Telecourses of the 1970s-80s

(c) Audio and video conferencing of the 1980s-90s

(d) One-off Internet courses and "shovelware" of the 1990s

(These applications tend to be driven primarily by one technology and to follow the discursive approach of a traditional classroom. They transfer the traditional classroom paradigm to a new medium.)

(e) Interactive CD-ROM courses of the 1990s

(Some of today's CD-ROM course projects, while still technology driven, are reaching to use the technologies in ways that were not possible before the advent of today's technologies.)

(f) Video and audio courses of the Annenberg/CPB Project of the 1980s-90s

(These courses had three unique characteristics: first, they were created to serve a social need – to provide tertiary-level educational opportunities to those who could not take advantage of traditional opportunities; second, they took advantage of advanced educational design to allocate to various media the part of the instructional process they could do best; and, third, they had built-in quality control procedures.)

(g) Approach of the Western Governors University

(The suite of products and services provided by WGU is also designed to serve a social need – to make educational services available to larger numbers of learners at times and places of their choosing, using a variety of appropriate technologies.)

(h) Approach of innovative corporate universities of the 1990s

(Some corporate universities are developing new pedagogical paradigms that often mix new instructional approaches (such as shorter, more intense courses) and new applications of the technologies.)

(j) Approach of the University of Phoenix

(This is a highly consumer-driven model that uses a mixture of traditional and newer instructional approaches and technologies.)

(k) New services such as those offered by the PBS ACCESS Project

(While not a program of study, this project is developing a suite of services that will help learners craft an individualized distance education program by taking appropriate advantage of a variety of instructional packages and support services delivered through a variety of technologies.)

CONCLUSION

The purpose of this paper has been to provide a glimpse of some of the leading edge distance and virtual education programs in the United States at the beginning of 1999. It does not claim to be a comprehensive picture, but the reader has been provided with many World Wide Web addresses (Universal Resource Locators – URLs) to pursue for further information. This "snapshot" should also provide a base for monitoring changes in the evolution of distance and virtual learning in the early part of the 21^st Century.

This paper will conclude with some closing observations on issues and concerns that might be shared between IHEs in the United States and elsewhere as they attempt to introduce or refine their distance and virtual learning programs.

• Technology Infrastructure. In the U.S., the communications and information technology infrastructure needed to support and use distance education is quickly becoming available to all IHEs and to more than half of all learners. Almost all IHEs already have Web pages; four out of five are offering one or more distance education courses; and one out of three already offers at least one complete degree program on the Web. Most institutions have high-speed access to the Web. As for individual learners, almost all have telephones and VCRs in the home; almost half have a computer with access to the Internet. While there is some chasm between the "haves" and the "have nots" in terms of the quality of the equipment they have, the rapid drop in cost of even the most sophisticated technologies is closing that gap.
• Financial Considerations. Most distance and virtual learning programs must be "self-supporting" as far as the IHEs are concerned. Because many evolved from Continuing Education departments, which traditionally do not receive tuition reimbursement from state or federal agencies, they have had to survive on the tuition they charge to students. Some students must pay for the courses from their own pockets. Some get reimbursements from their employers. Still others qualify for loans and scholarships from the federal government and other sources. For example, the Regents College Web site lists three sources of funding available from New York State, nine sources of private loans, three College scholarship programs, and six other sources of potential funding that students can pursue to help them pay for their education. And recently the federal government has introduced a federal tax credit for lifelong learning that lets certain taxpayers reduce their annual tax bills by 20% of the amount they pay for qualified education during the year.
• Learner And Teacher Acceptance Of Distance And Virtual Learning. Many faculty members have traditionally viewed distance and virtual learning programs as second-class education. They believe that unless a student can sit at their feet and listen to their wisdom, they are not receiving a first-rate education. On the other hand, students and employers do not share that view. For students, access and convenience are primary concerns, and distance and virtual learning programs have both of those characteristics. Employers look for quality educational programs that can be pursued conveniently by their employees. Since recent research has shown on more than one occasion that distance education programs are "equivalent" to traditional programs, students and employers have taken that as evidence that they are being well-served by these convenient programs. That confidence of the students and their employers has led to an increase in enrollments in distance education courses, which, in turn, has begun to attract the attention of administrators who are constantly seeking ways to increase enrollments in their institutions. In some cases, the faculty are the last to embrace the idea of distance education. Consequently, the pattern often goes: employer à learner à administrator à teacher.
• Reactions Of Conventional Institutions. As recently as the 1970s, many institutions used to note on transcripts which courses were taken at a distance, reflecting the faculty bias noted above (i.e., that distance education courses are inferior to on-campus courses). That situation has changed in the past five or so years, to the point where there are very few institutions that make any distinction between distance education and traditional courses, even though a sizable number of faculty members might continue to harbor their bias. Institutional acceptance of distance education is also evidenced by the large percentage of institutions that offer distance education courses, and the growing number that are offering complete degree programs at a distance. Many institutions view distance and virtual education programs as their "growth" area for the foreseeable future.
• Characteristics Of The Learners Being Served. Perhaps one of the forces driving the changed attitude of institutions toward distance and virtual education is the changing nature of the student body at most institutions. Whereas up into the 1970s the majority of college and university undergraduates was in the 18 to 24 year-old range, the median age now is in the early 30s. Almost all undergraduates hold down at least a part time job as they pursue their studies. As sophisticated consumers with significant disposable funds, they know what it is to expect and receive customer service. They want to be involved in planning their own education and they want that education delivered conveniently so that they can study when and where they are able. They are particularly interested in courses that are practical and that they can begin to use immediately in their jobs. 

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