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with the same tuition for distance education and comparable on-campus courses in
1997–98 indicating whether the institution adds any special fees to college-level,
credit-granting distance education courses that are not added to on-campus courses ..... 45
List of Exhibits
Exhibit
1 Generations of Distance Education Technologies ........................................................... 4
xiv
1
1. INTRODUCTION
Management pundit Peter Drucker has predicted that the residential university campus as
we know it will be defunct within 30 years. A better bet is that traditional higher
education will change, not disappear. The question is: How will it change? The fact is,
computer and related technologies are evolving so quickly—and new providers and
brokers of higher education proliferating so rapidly—no one knows. (Gladieux and Swail
1999, 7)
Many see the rise in the availability of
technology-supported distance education—that is,
the delivery of instruction over a distance to
individuals located in one or more venues—not
only as a revolutionary opportunity to increase
access to postsecondary education, but also as an
opportunity to hasten the overall pace of reform
in higher education (Ehrmann n.d.). In contrast to
the institutional status quo, what was once an
eclectic assortment of individually accessed,
noncredit educational courses is quickly being
knit into comprehensive degree- and certificategranting
programs (Phipps, Wellman, and
Merisotis 1998). Indeed, if a recent article in the
Chronicle of Higher Education (April 9, 1999,
A27) is any indication, the distance education
industry is thriving: “For an industry that barely
existed three years ago, the level of activity is
dizzying.”
This report, conducted by the National Center for
Education Statistics (NCES), presents findings
from the second nationally representative survey
of distance education at the postsecondary level.
This survey, conducted in winter 1998–99,
collected information about the 12-month 1997–
98 academic year. The first report, Distance
Education in Higher Education Institutions (U.S.
Department of Education 1997) was based on
data from a 1995 NCES Postsecondary Education
Quick Information System (PEQIS) survey of
higher education institutions. It reported findings
on the number of institutions offering distance
education courses, the number of distance
education courses offered, enrollments in distance
education courses, the number of distance
education degree and certificate programs
offered, and the types of technologies used to
deliver distance education. As the first NCES
report on the topic, it provided valuable baseline
information about the status of distance education
in higher education institutions.
The current report updates and expands upon the
findings presented in the previous report in
several important ways. Perhaps most
significantly, the current survey expands the
universe of institutions from which it collected
data, from higher education institutions to all 2-
year and 4-year postsecondary institutions. In
addition, this report also presents new
information about fields of study and instructional
levels of courses and programs offered through
distance education, as well as information about
how tuition and fees charged for distance
education courses compare to those charged for
on-campus courses. Finally , this report also
provides trend information for higher education
institutions, including changes in the percentage
of higher education institutions offering distance
education courses, enrollments and course
offerings, degree and certificate programs, as well
as technologies used to deliver distance education
courses. These empirical results are provided in
the following chapters of this report. The
remainder of this chapter provides a brief
overview of issues related to distance education.
2
Overview
What is Distance Education?
Distance education in the most general sense of
the term is instruction delivered over a distance to
one or more individuals located in one or more
venues (Phipps, Wellman, and Merisotis 1998).
By this definition, the history of distance
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