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Background
Technology-based distance education
is emerging as an increasingly important component of higher education. Publications
such as the Chronicle of Higher Education regularly feature articles about the
distance education efforts of various higher education institutions and systems,
states, and consortia. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education (July 6,
1994), while distance education to date has primarily concentrated on part-time
students, students who cannot travel easily to campus, and courses in selected
graduate programs (such as engineering and business administration), distance
education specialists and academic policymakers expect technology to help higher
education institutions provide a wide range of programs, including undergraduate
degree programs, to larger proportions of the student population.
Many states
have active distance education programs. For example, the Education Network of
Maine, an independent arm of the Maine university system, televises college courses
to 11 regional centers and other sites throughout the state and helps make available
85 courses and 14 degree programs, which served about 2,900 students in the fall
of 1995 (Chronicle of Higher Education, May 31, 1996). Colorado took a somewhat
different approach when it established Colorado Electronic Community College as
the states 12th community college. Colorado Electronic Community College
was created when the states other 11 community colleges joined forces with
Mind Extension University (now known as Jones Education Connection), a for-profit
institution that uses cable television and videotapes to deliver courses from
more than 30 colleges and universities. The focus of the new institution is to
reach people in rural areas of Colorado who are far from other colleges (Chronicle
of Higher Education, December 8, 1995). Among the other notable education networks
for distance education run by states and higher education systems are EdNet in
Oregon, the Iowa Communications Network, the TeleLinking Network in Kentucky,
and BadgerNet in Wisconsin.
In the West, the governors of 15 states (and
one U.S. territory) are developing a virtual university called the
Western Governors University. This virtual university will have no campus and
will rely heavily on computers and other technology such as interactive video
to deliver instruction. Other states and institutions have joined together into
cooperatives and consortia to support and offer distance education. Examples of
such cooperatives and consortia include the Western Cooperative for Educational
Telecommunications, a project of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher
Education, and the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, which consists of 12
large institutions, including Pennsylvania State University, the University of
Iowa, Ohio State University, the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin,
and the University of Illinois (Chronicle of Higher Education, December 8, 1995).
A number of large universities (e.g., the University of Maryland, Duke University,
and Purdue University) offer complete masters degrees in business through
the Internet.
In recent years, 60 community colleges have joined with 22
public television stations around the country to offer associates degree
programs through distance education telecourses under a program called Going
the Distance (Higher Education & National Affairs, American Council
on Education, August 15, 1994). This program is part of an initiative of the Public
Broadcasting Service (PBS) aimed at expanding career opportunities for working
adults and increasing work force competitiveness through adult education services.
PBS has offered telecourses through PBS stations and local colleges since 1981,
but students could not use them to completely fulfill degree requirements. Enrollment
in PBS telecourses has grown from 55,000 in 1981 to about 400,000 in 1996 (information
from the Adult Learning Service, PBS, August 27, 1997). Going the Distance
focuses on reaching students who could not otherwise attend college and work toward
a degree (The Washington Post, August 4, 1994).
While those examples highlight
the growing importance of distance education for higher education, they do not
provide information about distance education on a national scale. This PEQIS study
was designed to provide nationally representative data about distance education
course offerings in higher education institutions. The study obtained information
about the percentage of institutions that currently offer and that plan to offer
distance education courses in the next 3 years; distance education course offerings,
including the types of technologies used to deliver distance education courses
and the sites to which such courses are directed; distance education enrollments
and completions; characteristics of distance education courses and programs; distance
education program goals; future plans for distance education course offerings;
and factors keeping institutions from starting or expanding their distance education
offerings.
For this study, distance education was defined as education
or training courses delivered to remote (off-campus) locations via audio, video,
or computer technologies. For purposes of this study, the following types of courses
were not included: (1) courses conducted exclusively on campus, although some
on-campus instruction might be involved in the courses that were included; (2)
courses conducted exclusively via correspondence, although some instruction might
be conducted through correspondence in the courses that were included; and (3)
courses in which the instructor traveled to a remote site to deliver instruction
in person.
The following institutional characteristics were used as variables
for analyzing the survey data:
Type of institution: public 2-year, private
2-year, public 4- year, private 4-year. Type was created from a combination of
level (2-year, 4-year) and control (public, private). Two-year institutions are
defined as institutions at which the highest level of offerings is at least 2
but less than 4 years (below the baccalaureate degree); 4-year institutions are
those at which the highest level of offering is 4 or more years (baccalaureate
or higher degree).1 Private comprises private nonprofit and private for-profit
institutions; these private institutions are reported together because there are
too few private for-profit institutions in the sample for this survey to report
them as a separate category.
Region: Northeast, Southeast, Central, and
West, based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) definitions
of region. The states in each region are as follows:
Northeast: Connecticut,
Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
Southeast:
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina,
Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Central:
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North
Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
West: Alaska, Arizona, California,
Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas,
Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
Size of institution: less than 3,000 students
(small); 3,000 to 9,999 students (medium); and 10, 000 or more students (large).
The survey was conducted in fall of 1995 by the National Center for Education
Statistics using the Postsecondary Education Quick Information System (PEQIS).
PEQIS is designed to collect limited amounts of policy-relevant information on
a quick turn-around basis from a previously recruited, nationally representative
sample of postsecondary institutions. PEQIS surveys are generally limited to two
to three pages of questions with a response burden of 30 minutes per respondent.2
The survey was mailed to the PEQIS survey coordinators at 1,276 2-year and 4-year
higher education institutions.3 Coordinators were told that the survey was designed
to be completed by the person(s) at the institution most knowledgeable about the
institutions distance education course offerings. The unweighted survey
response rate was 94 percent (the weighted survey response rate was 96 percent).
Data were adjusted for questionnaire nonresponse and weighted to provide national
estimates. The section of this report on survey methodology and data reliability
provides a more detailed discussion of the sample and survey methodology. The
survey questionnaire is reproduced in appendix B.
All specific statements
of comparisons made in this report have been tested for statistical significance
through chi-square tests and t-tests adjusted for multiple comparisons using the
Bonferroni adjustment and are significant at the 95 percent confidence level or
better. However, not all statistically different comparisons have been presented,
since some were not of substantive importance.
Notes:
1Definitions
for level are from the data file documentation for the Integrated Postsecondary
Education Data System (IPEDS) Institutional Characteristics file, U.S. Department
of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.
2Additional information
about PEQIS is presented in the methodology section of this report.
3Higher
education institutions are institutions accredited at the college level by an
agency recognized by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, and are
a subset of all postsecondary education institutions.
Highlights
The
Survey on Distance Education Courses Offered by Higher Education Institutions
was requested by the National Institute on Postsecondary Education, Libraries,
and Lifelong Learning, U.S. Department of Education. The survey was designed to
provide the first nationally representative data about distance education course
offerings in higher education institutions. The study obtained information about
the percentage of institutions that currently offer and that plan to offer distance
education courses in the next 3 years; distance education course offerings, including
the types of technologies used to deliver distance education courses and the sites
to which such courses are directed; distance education enrollments and completions;
characteristics of distance education courses and programs; distance education
program goals; future plans for distance education course offerings; and factors
keeping institutions from starting or expanding their distance education offerings.
For this study, distance education was defined as education or training courses
delivered to remote (off-campus) locations via audio, video, or computer technologies.
Data were collected in fall 1995 from 2-year and 4-year higher education institutions
and were weighted to provide national estimates.
A third of higher education
institutions offered distance education courses in fall 1995, another quarter
planned to offer such courses in the next 3 years, and 42 percent did not offer
and did not plan to offer distance education courses in the next 3 years (Table
1). Public institutions offered distance education courses with much greater frequency
than did private institutions: 58 percent of public 2-year and 62 percent of public
4-year institutions offered distance education courses in fall 1995, compared
with 2 percent of private 2-year and 12 percent of private 4-year institutions
An estimated 25,730 distance education courses with different catalog numbers
were offered by higher education institutions in academic year 1994-95 (Table
2). Public 4-year institutions offered 45 percent, public 2-year institutions
39 percent, and private 4-year institutions 16 percent of the distance education
courses in 1994-95. About half of the institutions that offered distance education
courses in fall 1995 offered 10 or fewer such courses in academic year 1994-95
(Figure 2)
Distance education courses were delivered by two-way interactive
video at 57 percent, and by one-way prerecorded video at 52 percent of the institutions
offering distance education courses in fall 1995 (Table 3). About a quarter of
the institutions used two-way audio with one-way video, and computer-based technologies
other than two-way online interactions during instruction (e.g., the Internet)
to deliver their distance education courses.
About half of the higher
education institutions that offered distance education courses in fall 1995 directed
such courses to students homes (Table 4). Institutions also frequently directed
distance education courses to other branches of their institution (39 percent)
and other college campuses (35 percent). About a quarter of the institutions directed
distance education courses to elementary/secondary schools.
More higher
education institutions offered distance education courses designed primarily for
undergraduate students (81 percent of institutions) and graduate students (34
percent of institutions) than for any other type of student (Table 6). Professionals
seeking recertification were targeted by 39 percent, and other workers seeking
skill updating or retraining were targeted by 49 percent of institutions that
offered distance education courses in fall 1995 (Table 8).
There were
an estimated 753,640 students formally enrolled in distance education courses
in academic year 1994-95 (Table 10). Public 2-year institutions enrolled 55 percent,
public 4-year institutions 31 percent, and private 4-year institutions 14 percent
of the students enrolled in distance education courses in 1994-95.
About
a quarter of the institutions that offered distance education courses in fall
1995 offered degrees that students could complete by taking distance education
courses exclusively, and 7 percent offered certificates that could be completed
that way (Table 11). There were an estimated 690 degrees and 170 certificates
offered in fall 1995 that students could receive by taking distance education
courses exclusively. An estimated 3,430 students received degrees and 1,970 received
certificates in 1994-95 by taking distance education courses exclusively.
Access to library resources varied depending on the type of library resource.
Access to an electronic link with the institutions library was available
for some or all courses at 56 percent of the institutions, and cooperative agreements
for students to use other libraries were available at 62 percent of institutions
(tables 12 and 13). Institution library staff were assigned to assist distance
education students at 45 percent of the institutions, while library deposit collections
were available at remote sites at 39 percent of institutions.
Increasing
student access was an important goal for most distance education programs, with
making courses available at convenient locations rated as very important by 82
percent of institutions, and reducing time constraints for course taking rated
as very important by 63 percent of institutions (Table 16). Making educational
opportunities more affordable for students, another aspect of student access,
was rated as very important by about half of the institutions. Goals concerning
increasing the institutions audiences and enrollments were also perceived
as quite important, with increasing the institutions access to new audiences
and increasing the institutions enrollments rated as very important by 64
percent and 54 percent of institutions, respectively. In general, institutions
indicated that most of the goals were met to a minor or moderate extent. Goals
particularly likely to be met to a major extent concerned student access.
Among all institutions, including those with no future plans to offer distance
education courses, factors frequently reported as keeping the institution from
starting or expanding their distance education course offerings to a major extent
were program development costs (43 percent), limited technological infrastructure
to support distance education (31 percent), and equipment failures and costs of
maintaining equipment (23 percent; Table 23). However, in general, most factors
were not perceived to be major hindrances keeping institutions from starting or
expanding their distance education offerings.
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