Higher Education, E-Commerce and

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HIGHER EDUCATION, E-COMMERCE AND

Since its inception, university and college faculty have used the Internet as a powerful research tool and a vehicle for the dissemination of information. By the mid-1990s, many instructors communicated with students and colleagues via e-mail and incorporated Web-based materials into their courses. As the 21st century began, educators and administrators positioned the Internet as a central component of learning. Both private corporations and educational institutions expected the expanding commercial Internet to revolutionize higher education and open a lucrative source of revenue. International Data Corp. (IDC) projected a 33-percent growth in the U.S. e-learning market—to about $12 billion—from 1999 to 2004. However, the economic downturn of the early 2000s led to a shake-out in the online education industry and many e-learning endeavors shut down completely.

The U.S. spends $600 billion on education annually, making it the second largest industry after healthcare. Web-affiliated and online learning (also called e-education or e-learning) constituted one of higher education's fastest-growing trends. In 2000, about 75 percent of America's 4,000 colleges and universities offered online courses, up from 48 percent in 1998, according to Market Retrieval Service.

With a growing emphasis on an information-driven global economy, higher education was viewed as increasingly essential for the world's population. E-education's proponents insist that its geographically unlimited nature provides an efficient and cost-effective medium for supplying education to anyone with online access. Proponents perceive e-learning as an alternative to traditional, face-to-face classroom education and hail it as the great democratizer of higher education.

In contrast, critics cautioned that a wholesale drive to digitize course content and teaching raises serious questions about intellectual property rights, academic freedom, and the very goals of higher education. They cautioned that cyber-education threatened to abolish the need for human educators and to reduce higher education to "Webucation" purveyed by "McUniversities."

The Internet's impact has been felt in many arenas of higher education. It facilitates communication and research. It has spawned courseware and college portal companies that provide streamlined university services to faculty, administrators, and students. It increasingly has become the school itself, as more cyber-colleges and fully online universities emerge, offering everything from technical certificates to full-blown advanced graduate and professional degrees.

About 2.2 million students are expected to enroll in online courses by 2002, up from 710,000 in 1998, according to IDC. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Education Statistics indicated that about half of all post-secondary students consisted of adults 25 years or older. This group in particular stands to benefit from the flexibility and availability of Web-affiliated higher education courses.

HISTORY

During the 1950s and 1960s, computers on campuses were employed primarily for scientific research. By the late 1960s, computer technology was adopted for instructional and administrative purposes. Most research universities built centralized computer centers with powerful and expensive machines, usually to serve the physical sciences. With the personal computer revolution of the 1980s, more departments provided individual computers for faculty, and computing resources became increasingly integrated into humanities and arts teaching and research. The Internet caused an explosion in the range and kinds of information available to even remote, small campuses. Institutional libraries in particular became early converts to the possibilities offered by this technology, which permitted the automation of nearly all steps involved in the acquisition and cataloging of library materials. Electronic catalogs generated the ability to search other institutions' holdings online, which caused a quantum leap in library users' research capabilities.

Courses delivered over the Web represented a new development in distance learning. They continued an educational trend dating back to the 19th century, when mail correspondence courses first offered access to higher education for much of America's widely scattered population. In the 20th century, distance education harnessed new communication technologies. The first educational radio station received its license in 1921, and the first such television station in 1945.

The World Wide Web's dramatic expansion in the 1990s led to the growth of online education. The first schools to adopt it as a teaching vehicle frequently designed and generated their own software platforms for course delivery, since user-ready products weren't commercially available. By 2000, many software products appeared that allowed instructors to tailor online courses to their individual needs. These applications also featured electronic grade delivery and course assessment options.

Colleges and universities experimented with various forms of online education. Some institutions required even residential students to complete a portion of their coursework online. Others formed consortia of several schools, making their pooled course offerings available via online portals. UCLA was the first university to mandate that all of its arts and sciences classes develop Web sites.

The United States lacks a centralized accrediting agency for higher education, and only a portion of existing accreditation agencies are recognized by the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) or the Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). In 2000, the DOE authorized the Distance Education Demonstration Program as a part of the Higher Education Act. The program was instituted to determine ways to adapt financial aid requirements to accommodate distance and online students. A pilot, two-year assessment of 15 schools was set up to discover whether e-learning curricula were rigorous enough to qualify for aid. Reliable statistics concerning student retention and completion rates for e-learning weren't compiled by late 2001, but they generally are thought to be lower than for traditional learning methods.

TYPES OF VIRTUAL HIGHER-ED INSTITUTIONS

A wide variety of higher-education institutions have implemented e-learning programs. Large public university systems often turned to e-learning as a cost-effective means of expansion. They also looked at it as a way to accommodate a projected 20-percent increase in applications by 2008, when Generation Y graduates from high school. In general, online courses became more attractive in an era of shrinking state education budgets. Community colleges embraced e-learning to serve rising numbers of returning and first-time adult students; by 2000, nearly half of all college students were more than 21 years of age.

Elite, private institutions also began testing cyber-education as a revenue-generating endeavor. Their early experiments frequently involved online engineering or business programs targeted at professionals seeking additional training. Fearful of jeopardizing their academic reputations, many schools spun off independent, for-profit online units offering only non-credit courses. Collaborations among private Internet companies, museums, publishers, and universities also appeared, such as UNext.com, which counted Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the London School of Economics among its contributors. Faculty from those institutions developed the online courses and delivered lectures via streaming media. However, part-time instructors handled the actual grading and student communication via e-mail. By 2001, the profitability of such ventures was still unproven. Some of these collaborations provided scholarly articles and lectures for free, hoping to convince online visitors to enroll in affiliated cyber-courses. They also featured online bookshops. At least one prestigious university, MIT, decided to place all of its courses online; anyone can access the classes, though only those paying to enroll will be granted any credit for them.

The most controversial entrants into the e-education arena were for-profit, degree-and certificate-granting institutions, which exist entirely online. One such school, the University of Phoenix, had become the largest private higher-education provider in the United States by 2000. Another, Jones University, was the first exclusively online university to gain accreditation in 1999. Most such ventures offer standardized online courses taught by adjunct instructors.

Two educational areas particularly well served by e-learning were corporate and U.S. Military training. American businesses spend approximately $60 billion annually on employee education, and online courses well suit the scheduling needs of working adult students. Such students often possess a more focused, disciplined approach to education than traditional college-age students, and thus can handle the less-structured learning environment of cyber-education. The U.S. military adopted online instruction to help retain enlistees. In 2000 the Army proposed creating an educational portal that would permit active-duty personnel to continue their education online from any location in which they were serving, with the military footing the bill.

Beyond cyber-classes, the Internet also has affected traditional, face-to-face classroom education. A majority of campus personnel utilize e-mail for transmitting feedback on assignments and conducting teacher-student meetings. Educational software, or "courseware," initially consisted of student-generated, course-affiliated Web sites and professors' lecture notes posted online. However, these delivery platforms have become increasingly elaborate. Many were developed as collaborations between e-learning companies and high-profile professors from famous institutions; the online course content is licensed from the faculty or institutional developers. Some course-ware provides templates that permit instructors to set up online chat rooms and course bulletin boards, post syllabi, and provide links to course-relevant sites. Software also features online grading and diagnostic components to monitor and assess student learning. With "smart classrooms," teachers can incorporate online audio and visual resources into their lectures, or students can attend real-time "guest lectures" given by professors located anywhere in the world.

Some observers predict that "benchmark" versions of the most popular general-education courses required by nearly all higher-education institutions will soon replace lectures written by individual instructors at each institution. These courses, usually introductory surveys in psychology, American history, English composition, calculus, and biology, generate roughly half of all credit enrollment in the United States. Preparatory courses for standardized admission tests also have gone digital.

College portals also have emerged. These allow students to apply to multiple schools online, fill out financial aid applications, as well as register for classes, pay tuition, and order textbooks. Other portals were intended for college faculty and administrators who can use the Web to track enrollments, submit grades, and so on. Many of these services initially came free of charge to interested colleges and universities, provided that the institutions allowed advertising and e-commercial applications to be supplied alongside campus-oriented information. Most also used cookies to trace users' Web habits.

THE DEBATE OVER E-LEARNING

The increasing presence of the Internet and e-commerce in higher education sparked heated disagreement over its appropriateness and effectiveness. Given a dearth of rigorous studies of the trend, few definitive conclusions have been reached and policy recommendations have been difficult for governmental agencies and educators to formulate.

Proponents argue that Internet technology facilitates expanded communication among faculty, students, and administrators. They state that in-class lectures are enhanced by the incorporation of online graphics, audio, and visual displays. Furthermore, students gain instant access to lecture notes, readings, and links to relevant external sites without even entering a library or classroom. The Internet also provides sophisticated interactive learning and assessment tools for teachers and students.

The flexibility and accessibility of online learning appeal to many students, particularly working adults pursuing additional professional education. Studies based on students' perceptions of the value of e-learning indicate that many felt they experienced more interaction with teachers than in face-to-face classes. Students who were intimidated in regular classrooms contributed more freely to online discussions.

E-learning supporters characterize cyber-learning as a democratizer of higher education because geography no longer prevents learners from enrolling in courses offered by premier institutions. E-learning can also accommodate the myriad students who desire continuing education, but are unable to take advantage of it because of job or family responsibilities, as e-learning tends to occur at the student's convenience.

Supporters also applaud the Internet's role in increasing the commercialization of higher education. They argue that traditional institutions remain bastions of privilege and financial inefficiency, with under-worked, tenured professors drawing large salaries for little effort in the classroom. They also decry the waste of costly campus buildings and equipment. As they point out, online institutions offer benchmark products tailored to the needs and desires of educational consumers and delivered with very little investment in labor or physical plants. In 1998, Washington Governor Gary Locke pronounced that online courses eventually could replace all public university faculty.

In contrast, critics fear that as online education expands, administrators gain much greater control over faculty performance and course content, endangering academic freedom. Opponents question elearning's unproven track record. Students must be disciplined and motivated, because virtual classrooms lack the supervision, interaction, and encouragement that physically present instructors and classmates supply. The quality of online offerings varies greatly and program retention rates range from 20 to 97 percent. The lack of accredited programs may indicate that many online institutions are little more than "degree mills." One of the most prominent concerns voiced by skeptics of e-learning is the lack of information regarding acceptable educational standards for online education. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) proposed that a set of quality standards for college-based distance education programs be developed.

In response to arguments that the Internet equalizes access to higher education, critics cite a College Board study entitled "The Virtual University and Educational Opportunity," which indicated that the increasing digitization of education actually can intensify the problems of unequal educational opportunities since lower-income students often lack computer skills and Web access. Additionally, accredited online institutions often charge slightly more than traditional colleges and universities, putting their offerings further out of poorer students' reach.

Critics also worry about the effects of the virtual education trend on academic freedom and on faculty. Whether professors own the intellectual property rights to their online courses, and whether their institutions or private companies can dictate what and how they teach, remain unsettled issues. Existing legal standards regarding "fair use" exceptions to copyright protection for scholarly and educational purposes may not hold up in cyberspace. The licensing arrangements that govern the purchase and use of online courseware also are indeterminate. Finally, libraries' right of "first sale," which permits them to purchase items and then lend them to borrowers, may be imperiled. An American Federation of Teachers survey of distance instructors revealed that one-half said they received no monetary compensation or release time in exchange for the extra time required to develop online courses, which 90 percent said required more preparation time than traditional classroom courses. This places adjunct part-timers in a particularly vulnerable position. State administrators see a switch to online education as a means of cutting costs while expanding the reach of their educational systems. Finally, critics state that the e-learning trend has been promoted by administrators, courseware vendors, and e-learning corporations, with little or no involvement of faculty and students.

E-LEARNING WORLDWIDE

E-learning's presence has been felt around the globe, particularly in developing nations whose educational infrastructures often could not satisfy the existing demand. For decades these countries relied on distance education delivered via radio or TV, and many sought to tap online learning to bring courses from high-prestige, western universities to their citizens. If underdeveloped nations are to become competitive in the global marketplace, they too will require highly educated work forces conversant with the latest information technology. Therefore, the demand for ongoing education and skill development can be expected to remain constant.

However, throughout many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America, a fundamental obstacle to expanding online education was the lack of an even rudimentary infrastructure, particularly in rural areas. Such areas also face shortages of computer-literate teachers. Many of the same concerns about the virtualization of higher education voiced by industrialized nations also affected the developing world, such as issues of the quality and effectiveness of online learning and confusion about intellectual property rights. However, additional problems emerged in underdeveloped areas of the globe. For example, if local e-learning programs succeed, some fear that they will face foreign competitors seeking to penetrate emerging markets. Some countries, such as Argentina and Chile, require all distance education offered in their countries to come under the purview of their national accreditation agencies. All foreign universities seeking to offer courses in India must register with the government. Brazil's education ministry refuses to recognize any degree earned from programs sponsored by foreign institutions.

In 2001, the European Commission adopted a $3.3 billion "eLearning Action Plan" to promote online education in European universities. The plan advocated improving information technology infrastructures, providing teacher instruction, and linking all EU higher-education institutions in a single network.

E-learning's greatest potential impact may eventually be felt in the developing world. With burgeoning populations and a lack of skilled workers, these nations experienced a pressing need to expand access to higher education quickly and affordably. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimated that only three percent of young people in sub-Saharan Africa and seven percent in Asia received some post-secondary education, compared with 58 percent in industrialized countries overall and 81 percent in the United States. Many developing countries are experimenting with national, virtual universities to be financed primarily by the World Bank.

THE FUTURE OF CYBER-EDUCATION

Many fundamental questions remain unanswered. Among these are: Who owns the rights to courseware and other online educational materials? What conditions should govern employment of instructors in virtual universities? What limitations should be placed on Internet use by educational institutions and for-profit endeavors? How should privacy be protected in the e-learning environment? And what guidelines should govern research conducted online? But while the precise nature of e-learning remains fiercely contested, the rush of universities to set up infrastructure on the Internet continues unabated.