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According to the 1997–98 PEQIS
survey:
· An estimated 54,470 different distance
education courses 2 were offered, most of
which were college-level, credit-granting
courses (49,690) (table 6). About half of the
institutions that offered distance education
courses in 1997–98 offered 15 or fewer
different distance education courses, with 23
percent offering 1 to 5 courses (figure 2).
Public 2-year and 4-year institutions
1 If a student was enrolled in multiple courses, institutions were
instructed to count the student for each course in which he or she
was enrolled. Thus, enrollments may include duplicated counts of
students.
2 If a course had multiple sections or was offered multiple times
during the academic year, institutions were instructed to count it as
only one course.
combined offered about 8 out of 10 of the
distance education courses offered (table 6).
· The two fields in which more institutions that
offered distance education courses offered
college-level, credit-granting distance education
courses were the general field of English,
humanities, and the social and behavioral
sciences (70 percent of institutions) and the
field of business and management (55 percent
of institutions) (table 7).
· The general pattern was for institutions to
offer for-credit distance education courses
more at the undergraduate than at the
graduate/first-professional level. The exceptions
were in the fields of education,
engineering, and library and information
sciences, where more college-level, creditgranting
distance education courses were
offered at the graduate/first-professional level
than at the undergraduate level (table 7).
Degree and Certificate Programs
While taking individual courses through distance
education has the potential to increase access to
postsecondary education among those who
traditionally have not had access, it is the
possibility of completing degree and certificate
programs solely through distance education that
offers the potential for the most dramatic changes
in access and opportunity. This report presents
information about the prevalence of distance
education degree and certificate programs in all
postsecondary institutions by institutional type,
level of the degree and certificate programs, and
general field of study. The 1997–98 PEQIS
survey indicates that:
· Eight percent of all 2-year and 4-year
postsecondary institutions offered collegelevel
degree or certificate programs that were
designed to be completed totally through
distance education. Among the 34 percent of
institutions that offered any distance
education courses in 1997–98, 25 percent
offered distance education degrees or
certificates. Among all postsecondary
institutions, public 4-year institutions were
more likely than other types of institutions to
v
offer distance education degree and certificate
programs (table 13).
· In 1997–98, 2-year and 4-year postsecondary
institutions offered an estimated 1,230
distance education degree programs and 340
distance education certificate programs (table
15). Postsecondary institutions offering
distance education programs were more likely
to offer graduate/first-professional degrees or
certificates than undergraduate degrees or
certificates (table 15). Graduate/firstprofessional
degree programs were most
likely to be offered in business and management,
the health professions, education, and
engineering (table 14).
Distance Education Technologies Employed
Changes in the types of technologies available for
delivering distance education, including changes
in the capabilities of networking technology and
the rise of the Internet, have played a role in the
adoption of distance education by postsecondary
institutions. This report provides information
about the types of technologies employed by all
postsecondary institutions to deliver distance
education in 1997–98. To provide insight into the
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