E-Commerce and Higher Education - History

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.