The idea that Internet-based distance education offers the potential to globalize higher education has not been matched by significant interest in the pedagogical and methodological issues at stake. This essay discusses a two-year experimental course conducted between two college classes in Karlskrona, Sweden and Ohio, in the United States. More...

Corporate managers are constantly looking for more cost-effective ways to deliver training to their employees. E-learning is less expensive than traditional classroom instruction. In addition, many expenses - booking training facilities, travel costs for employees or trainers, plus employee time away from the job - are greatly reduced. More...

This article challenges the belief that strong sense of community is limited to the traditional classroom and proposes that the virtual classroom has the potential of building and sustaining sense of community at levels that are comparable to the traditional classroom. More...

Table of Contents

Editorial

Research Articles

Research Notes

Book Notes

Technical Notes

Full Issue

IRRODL Volume 3, Number 1

PDF 1-166

The University of Texas (UT) System has been meeting educational needs of students for over 150 years. In 1997, the UT System initiated the development of the UT TeleCampus, a centralized facilitation point for distance learning. The TeleCampus opened its virtual doors in May 1998, focused entirely on support services for students. By late 1998, the TeleCampus had begun developing what would become collaborative benchmark online programs for the UT System. More...

The genesis, initiation, and expansion of distance education at the Ukraine Open International University for Human Development, located in Kyiv, will be examined in this case study, starting with a brief look at the positive changes taking place in Ukraine's traditional educational system, as well as recent developments in the country's distance education (DE) system. More...

When it was created in 1995, the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) served only 200 students and offered two degrees. Today, it has expanded its activities to serve over 20,000 students and 16 official degrees. UOC also offers more than 250 continuing education courses for those wishing to pursue learning opportunities outside of UOC’s official degree programs. As an innovative university, UOC offers a new way of experiencing education, one that is capable of providing answers to an emerging global and universal knowledge society. More...

According to García Canclini (1990) there is the assumption that Colombia is a hybrid society. Upon this standpoint, and within a traditional higher education structure characterized by being fundamentally conventional or campus based, the Open University Center of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana was created as an education program that breaks with every traditional scheme, which in turn, encourages a new learning pattern. The Open University Center emerges as a "social response" focused on the "here and now" of today's society in Colombia. More...

This case study describes current developments in the change processes that are underway at the University of South Australia (UniSA) as it develops from a dual mode institution to one that embraces flexibility in delivery of all of its courses and programs. Forces operating in the context of higher education are causing traditional institutions to become dual mode. More...

Open and distance education in Taiwan has evolved into the third phase – cyberlearning – conceptualized as teaching and learning interactions mediated entirely through the application of state-of-the-art information and communications technologies (ICT), such as the Internet and World Wide Web (WWW). More...