| |
    
|
Coming Soon to a Campus Near You by Gregory Lauer
Do Monday mornings and class in Lind Hall seem as compatible as Cher and Sonny Bono to you? Would you rather organize your father's collection of Pavarotti CDs than sit through another lecture in a crowded auditorium with 500 dazed and confused freshmen? Do you battle the rigid demands of a conventional college schedule like Luke Skywalker fought the dark side?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, a virtual university may be an ideal educational match for you. In addition to convenience, virtual universities hold the promise of dramatically increased accessibility, widespread affordability, and enhanced educational effectiveness.
And now that you've finally found an environment of higher learning that meets your needs, you wonder, "What exactly is a virtual university?"
Well, it's not just a panacea for students who enjoy sleeping in late or view the Franklin planner as a fashion accessory. Critics hail it as a radical development in the evolution of educational delivery systems, and they cite a host of potential benefits as evidence.
First, traditional colleges and universities, cyber-school supporters say, simply aren't prepared to meet the learning requirements of the masses in the twenty-first century. In a world increasingly defined by terms like international trade and turbocharged capitalism, knowledge is proving to be a more important economic resource than oil or steel. Over the last several decades, the proportion of labor costs of many products rose substantially. Consequently, a highly skilled and knowledgeable workforce is increasingly important to economic development in both the public and private sectors. While it isn't practical to send millions of workers to college to update skills, online training and instruction may overcome these limitations.
Additionally, higher education traditionally focused on pre-employment learning, and many practices, processes and products were developed for students with little or no work experience (i.e., the high school graduate). In a time where "lifelong learning" is not just a catchy Fortune 500 slogan but a marketplace reality, colleges and universities must develop services for those individuals with as much as ten, twenty, or even thirty years in the labor market. This remarkable shift in educational demand calls for new and innovative delivery mechanisms like cyber classes and interactive television.
Next, higher education faces a litany of budget woes in today's climate of restrained federal and state spending. Here in Minnesota, the University's share of the state budget has declined from an all-time high of 16 percent to 12 percent. The University now competes with K-12 education, prisons and correctional facilities, and health care for ever scarcer dollars. Demographic trends also paint a dismal picture; as the general population ages, fewer financial resources will be allocated to colleges and universities. Although Gov. Arne Carlson's proposed budget includes an extra $116 million for the University in the coming biennium (a 13 percent increase), the future fiscal outlook is bleak. At the federal level, many programs that aid students (such as federally guaranteed loans) are being restructured, and funding levels are expected to fall. Critics expect that virtual universities will have lower instructional costs owing to reduced overhead (for example, large investments in property, plant, and equipment won't be necessary) and can better cope with reduced federal and state support.
Online universities also hold an advantage from a geographic perspective. Consider a person living in a remote area like the Alaskan interior. The student is physically isolated from institutions of higher learning, and the nearest traditional college or university may be hundreds of miles away.
Assuming the student has a phone, however, getting on the educational turnpike is merely a matter of connecting with the Internet. Many proponents also believe distance learning concepts like cyber classes will promote accessibility, which will only become more important in future years as schools across the country continue to promote diversity.
Finally, as was mentioned earlier, virtual classes offer expanded convenience. For individuals in the working world, the scheduling demands of a regular college course may be onerous. Even extension (evening) classes offered here at the University are somewhat rigid and inflexible. Virtual classes, however, will empower many students to select a pace that is most appropriate and tailored to individual needs.
Currently, New York University (NYU) is working in coordination with IBM to increase the number of online courses from four to 30 by next year. As part of a "global virtual college" program, the unique public/private partnership will offer classes designed for information systems professionals. "The goal is to allow computer professionals to sharpen their information technology (IT) skills or obtain graduate degrees without entering a classroom," says the director of NYU's IT continuing education program.
Further west, a consortium of states hopes to create an accredited virtual university sans campus complete with faculty, administration, and students. Distance learning efforts are also in place in Florida, California, and elsewhere.
Closer to home, the University of Minnesota is making strides toward going online. In several presentations at the Capitol in January, University administrators impressed legislators by demonstrating the extensive set of student services now offered via the World Wide Web. Many classes also integrate web pages into the curriculum, and several classes are now offered totally via the Internet.
Dr. Paul Brady of the Department of Food Science and Nutrition is the creator of "Internetting for Biologists and Others" (FScN 5111), the University's first-ever cyber class. In a series of lessons and field trips, students explore various avenues and alleys of the far-reaching Internet and then file reports documenting their experience; all communication between professor and student takes place in the electronic ether. Students in "Internetting for Biologists and Others" are exposed to a wide variety of Internet applications and technology.
Although the development of new and advanced technologies shows no signs of slowing, the tools of the Internet may be divided into three general categories. The first broad category includes static (or slowly changing) information tools. In this environment, characterized as mono-directional, a server provides information to clients. For example, many World Wide Web pages and Gopher are static information tools. Second, asynchronous communication tools, in which communication is two-way but not necessarily simultaneous, include e-mail, listservs, and newsgroups. In the third category, which includes synchronous communication tools, individuals converse in much the same way as they do in real life. Examples include Internet Relay Chat (IRC), multiuser object-oriented domains (MOO), Internet Phone (live audio communication), and CUSeeMe (live audio and video exchange).
Brady cited the expanding geographic diversity of his students while discussing the success of the class. "There are currently over 100 students in the class. They are mostly from Minnesota, but a growing group is scattered around the country. We've had two Antarcticans finish, and I believe we'll have our first international student join us this spring if he can sort out the vagaries of exchange rates and fill out forms in English," said Brady.
Classes like those taught by Brady will become more commonplace in the coming years as the technology improves and the benefits emerge. Dr. Daniel Granger, the Director of Distance Education here at the University, explained some of the advantages of distance learning. "If distance education is the significant breakthrough that many of us think it is, it won't be simply because you can now download the syllabus and ask questions of your instructor without leaving your dorm room. It will be because distance education begins the learning process with the student and the student's situation, wherever and whatever that is, then provides the support that she or he needs to cross the distances to successful learning."
As Granger and others maintain, the implementation of distance learning concepts like virtual universities may revolutionize the state of education. It will cut costs, expand opportunities, enhance accessibility, and circumvent scheduling obstacles. And who knows-in the future, you might be able to earn a college degree without ever stepping into a classroom.
