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(Published in NewMedia December 15, 1997 Contents)

Distance Education Moves to the Web
Anytime, Anywhere Learning
By Mary
Axelson

SIDEBARS
Getting a College Education Online

Educating Mobile Professionals

The Government Puts the Web to Work

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There's a new respect for distance learning (DL) -- and particularly for its online incarnation. Thanks to accreditation, today's courses are a far cry from the correspondence-course system where somebody mails a degree once the P.O. box is filled with your papers and payments. Computer-based training (CBT) is also gaining new popularity, supplemented with collaboration and real-time instruction.
      More significantly, people finally believe that there's a constant need to bolster their educations. Lifelong learning has become a necessity for anybody who has to pay a mortgage. In fact, you can earn a degree from the same highly valued home, or from work, or from any other wired locale. As long as consumers aren't forced into "all the time, everywhere learning," the market for "anytime, anywhere learning" is likely to boom.
      Now that the Web is being recognized as a utility instead of an experiment, the options have changed. "With videotape and television, the communication travels only one way," explains Glenn R. Jones, founder of the Jones Education Company. "Internet technologies open the channels of communication and have changed the face of distance education." Here, we take a look at the markets taking advantage of distance learning, the kinds of courses being taught, and what the cutting-edge classroom looks like.

Booming Corporate Market
Corporate departments responsible for training have embraced self-paced CBT. It's an efficient alternative to stand-up training, which has associated travel costs. To date, there has been essentially a two-track system serving skilled workers and executives. Videoconferencing has taken off, especially with the second track of the training audience -- executives who might spurn CBT.
      There's a lot of money in the corporate training market. International Data Corporation estimates that direct costs for the entire U.S. training market -- including instructors in the classrooms, computer-based training, and videoconferencing -- amounted to more than $60 billion in 1996. Indirect costs such as travel and employee compensation double the investment companies make to more than $120 billion.
      Within this corporate training market, CBT software is a growing segment. The 1997 CBT Report, published by Hingham, Massachusetts-based SB Communications estimates an annual growth rate of 38 percent for all forms of CBT. According to the report, CBT software accounts for anywhere from 10 percent to 30 percent of a company's training budget, and it is typically used to supplement live instruction. CD-ROM is still the most popular digital format in large companies, but the report concludes that small companies that couldn't afford much in the way of training are creating a new market for Web-based systems.
      While Internet courses are still in their infancy, David Burke, marketing manager for learning products for Asymetrix, puts the market at "somewhere around $250 to $500 million, growing in the neighborhood of 50 percent to 100 percent per year." IDC estimates it will be a billion-dollar market by the year 2000.

continue Anytime, Anywhere Learning  December 15, 1997 Contents


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