Distance education reverses the traditional way of providing education to the learning community. Instead of students coming to the university to get that needed education, the university comes to the student. This research/survey of undergraduate engineering distance learning universities was conducted utilizing traditional and virtual sources of…

The study of discourse genres as social action has steadily displaced more traditional views of genre, proposing the organic and ecological model that any consistent pattern of response to a recurrent rhetorical situation might constitute a genre. Observation of the life cycles of genres as transient social events can occur in a classroom using…

In 2 years, RMIT University (Melbourne, Australia) set up an online learning system for 50,000 students. The development of the RMIT Distributed Learning System has taken the University from a cottage industry model to a fully fledged enterprise system for flexible online learning, integrated with the University's student administration system and…

This paper focuses on the experiences and the research of two communication instructors who are currently using Blackboard CourseInfo, an online software program, to enhance learning and communication. The paper states that ,in 1999, Ohio University made Blackboard CourseInfo available to its faculty to enable instructors to have the option of…

Online computer conferences used to assist distance learning courses often fail because the moderator-usually the instructor responsible for the conference-is not properly trained in techniques that build a community of learners. It has often been assumed that the skills required to create a vibrant classroom discussion translate easily to an…

Technology is progressing at an unprecedented pace. The world of business is keeping up with it. However, schools are being criticized by the general public, which is skeptical about the ability of schools to produce citizens that will be able to face the challenges of the 21st century. Educators are predicting that the current school system will…

The purpose of this study was to analyze, categorize, and critique actual responses to expressed student confusion and frustration with online courses. Samplings of actual student messages from two courses were used to frame instructor responses, as well as a focus group survey of current college students. The focus of the study was the…

This paper presents a World Wide Web-based infrastructure for cooperation between many different parties. The infrastructure is designed for Web-based competitions involving an editorial board, designers of assignments or events, evaluators, different organizational layers, and contestants. Web-CS is entirely Web-based: all the communication…

This paper addresses some of the challenges to quality assurance faced by higher education as it enters the 21st century and reviews the current status of national policies for quality assurance. Many governments have decided that traditional academic controls are not adequate for today's challenges and that more explicit assurances about quality…

The impact of "virtual" universities on higher education and on Latino students was studied through interviews with Latino students and faculty at Walden University, an accredited distributed learning graduate school. Attracting career-bound practitioner scholars, Walden achieves high minority enrollments (around 37%) and significant…

The EDC (Educational Development Center) Center for Children and Technology (CCT) and Computers for Youth (CFY) completed a 1-year comparative study of children's use of computers in low- and middle-income homes. The study explores the digital divide as a literacy issue, rather than merely a technical one. Digital literacy is defined as a set of…

"Distance Training" models, when integrated in a more complex framework, such as a "Distance Consulting" model, present specific features and impose a revision of the strategies commonly adopted in distance training experiences. This paper reports on the distance training strategies adopted in a European funded project aimed at…

For the recent exhibition "Greater New York: New Art in New York Now," the Education Department at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, a large museum located in the Long Island City section of Queens, New York, organized a unique email-based discussion. The museum set up an e-mail address for most participating artists using the free…

In the transition from traditional teaching and learning to eLearning, the authors advocate avoiding disruptive approaches. The authors claim that many virtual university and corporate university efforts worldwide try to showcase big leaps forward, yet lack sustainability, suffer from in-vitro conditions, and leave behind the big mass of teachers.…

Academic dishonesty is a concern at any educational level. However, many faculty members feel uncomfortable with delivering courses in the online environment due to a concern that students may find it easier to participate in academic dishonesty than they would in a traditional classroom. This paper looks at factors that are considered to…