A university is an alma mater, knowing her children one by one, not a foundry, or a mint, or a treadmill.

--Cardinal John Newman

Technology is the science of arranging life so that one need not experience it.

--Anonymous

Now that you can shop, bank, work, chat, play games, and even "tour" art galleries online, are you ready to launch yourself into cyberspace college? It certainly makes sense to exploit the Internet's potential in the academic world. The Web can extend and transform the work done by colleges and universities, enabling them to reach underserved populations, share research, and develop new pedagogies. But will the Internet age be the best of times for higher education, or the worst of times? Will Internet-based education replace our familiar ivory towers with huge cybercampus treadmills? Or will technology defy neo-Luddite fears, and truly expand the content and scope of higher education?

Faculty and administrators acknowledge that the Internet will play a significant role in higher education, yet disagree on how. Administrators are focusing primarily on distance education--the delivery of courses to off-campus students. Distance education is nothing new--many institutions, primarily universities in rural states, already offer such programs through televised or videotaped lectures. Most such programs were originally intended to reach students in remote areas who were unable to get to the campus, although now distance learning attracts a wide range of students such as full-time workers, single parents, older learners, and those with physical disabilities.

A drawback for distance learning students, however, has been the lack of available interaction with instructors and peers. The Internet changes all that, offering students not only syllabi, reading lists, assignments and research tools online but also e-mail connections with faculty and others and the possibility of class "discussions" through chat rooms. Not only can students access course materials at their own convenience and do research and assignments online, they can also connect with a wider range of people than might have been possible on a physical campus. Nor must they leave jobs or relocate to attend classes--a significant savings for students, and a plus for businesses as well.

With demand growing from students and employers, universities are rushing to develop Internet-based programs. Canada, a leader in distance education, has led in Internet-based learning as well. Declaring its commitment to "building a knowledge economy," the Canadian federal government has funded the TeleLearning Research Network as one of the country's National Centres of Excellence. TL-RN, according to Program Leader Dr. Linda Harasim, is the first initiative in the world to link world-class researchers in a national effort to synthesize innovative pedagogies and technologies for all educational sectors from primary school through university, as well as workplace training and home delivery.

TL-RN has focused on four "beacon technologies": Computer Supported Intentional Learning Environments, a networked system built around a hypermedia database built by the learners; TELEFORM, a set of tools for delivery of telelearning in the workplace and home; CADRE, a set of tools for creating learning support systems; and Virtual-U (http://virtual-u.cs.sfu.ca), an online learning environment for design, delivery and enhancement of courses over the Internet. With the key support of government and business, TL- RN is a leader in building the infrastructure for network-based education.

Lacking this type of coherent support, universities in the U.S. are taking a more individual approach. More than half the institutions responding to a recent survey offer distance learning, and ten percent offer full degree programs through distance education. Many of these programs are now being enhanced with Internet technology. The University of Connecticut's Virtual Classroom (http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~mmlab/virtual/index.html), for example, includes online courses from 34 academic departments. In some cases, this means simply a web page with course information (syllabus, reading list, assignments, and instructor's e-mail address). More Web-savvy instructors, though, have created intricate sites that include hyperlinks to relevant online resources. Instead of heading for the library, for example, students in a short story class can visit Joseph K's Franz Kafka Site or enhance their appreciation of Hemingway by clicking on the Papa Page or Pamplona's Running of the Bulls Online (which includes sound and video). Whether this is "real" research or merely cyber-Cliff Notes, students are bound to find online options quite appealing.

Several institutions now offer full degree programs via the Internet. Many of these, unsurprisingly, are in business or computer technology. Duke (http://www.duke.edu/academ.html ) and Purdue Universities offer executive MBA programs that include some Internet work. The University of Phoenix's online degree program (http://www.uophx.edu/ ) is one of the most successful and widely-recognized; it offers accredited graduate and undergraduate degrees in business, management, or technology entirely online. Southwest Missouri State University's (http://www.smsu.edu) 36-credit-hour course in computer information systems is among the first graduate business degrees offered on the Internet by an accredited university. New Jersey Institute of Technology (http://www.njit.edu/DI/ ), through its ACCESS Program, offers full undergraduate and graduate degree programs, graduate certificates, and individual college courses via VCR, TV, telephone, and PC.

Partnerships linking several institutions are also beginning to emerge. The University of Washington will become the center of the new APEC Education Network (http://www.apec.org/), "the first APEC chartered interactive network linking scholars, students, scientists, business leaders and policy makers to facilitate research collaboration and educational exchange regarding the critical economic, political, and scientific policy issues in the Asia- Pacific region." The network is designed to facilitate communication and to "stimulate and enable the creation of a Trans- Pacific Internet University." UW is working actively to enhance and extend the capacity of the network, and to "create digital multimedia-based distance learning courses that draw on diverse international pool of talent that includes practitioners as well as educators."

Despite the proliferation of Internet-based distance learning, though, faculty remain wary. They see any rush to embrace Internet distance learning as basically a cost-cutting measure, and worry about standards. Are distance students really getting the same quality education as resident students receive? Is the push for distance learning driven primarily by commercial interests, and, if so, what effect will this have on college degree standards and accreditation? And will a significant increase in distance learning threaten teaching jobs? So important are these questions that the American Federation of Teachers created a Task Force on Technology in Higher Education. The Task Force's report, Teaming Up With Technology: How Unions Can Harness the Technology Revolution on Campus (January 1996), emphasizes the importance of using technology primarily for the enhancement of student learning. "Better education," the report insists, "not cost cutting, has to be the first principle."

There is no doubt that Internet distance learning cuts costs. When the governors of 11 Western states met late in 1995 to explore the possibility of a "virtual university" in their region, they were responding in large part to pressures to make higher education more available and affordable for their constituents ("Campuses in Cyberspace," The Chronicle of Higher Education, Dec. 15, 1995). College enrollment is expected to grow significantly in the region but the cost of building new facilities is prohibitive. Why not use the Internet to link students to existing institutions without incurring the costs of building more dorms and lecture halls?

But if the Internet can make college courses accessible to anyone with a modem, what will happen to standards? Will students get an education that is really of the same quality as what they would get on a physical campus? Faculty note with concern the "new level of commercialism in higher education" seen with the entry of providers such as Mind Extension University (ME/U), now known as JEC (http://www.jec.edu) which makes agreements with accredited colleges to grant credit for ME/U courses (Teaming up with Technology, p. 7). Teachers insist that commercial interests should not be allowed to take control of academic content, and also urge that distance learning students be required to spend at least some portion of their study in residence.

Another major concern is the issue of faculty and staff rights. Teachers worry, perhaps with good reason, that Internet distance learning will soon become "the electronic version of subcontracting" (Teaming up, p. 21). The AFT Task Force developed the strong recommendation that no layoffs or staffing reductions should result from dissemination of courses via the Internet. This position protects faculty rights, but also the needs of students for individual attention from instructors. Keeping a reasonable teacher-student ratio, faculty argue, will ensure that the Internet does not necessarily turn universities into mass-production facilities.

Perhaps the most difficult question relating to Internet-based higher education is its democratizing power. As more consumers get wired, the pool of potential Internet learners greatly expands. The promise of the Internet has always been free access to information--but are we really ready for a world in which "anyone" with a modem can get college credit? Will the Internet be the battering ram that smashes the carefully-guarded gates of academe?

The case of Britain's Open University (http://www.open.ac.uk) raises interesting questions. The institution, founded 27 years ago to "overcome boundaries", goes out to its students via mail, broadcast, and now, networked computers. It claims 218,000 current students, and admits any adult in the U.K. or the European Union, irrespective of previous educational qualifications. Most courses carry no prerequisites. The Open University claims to have one of the biggest business schools in Europe, and says that it produces 5 percent of all first-degree graduates in the U.K. each year. Costs for a degree through the Open University are approximately 3,200 pounds for a BA or BS; 8,200 for an MBA; 1,580--2,100 for the equivalent of an American M. Ed.; and 1,500-8,000 for other Masters degrees. But what is the real value of a degree from the Open University? And how demanding can its courses be if they are open to anyone, without prerequisite academic work?

In an age of rapidly changing employment, workers are being told they must become lifelong learners. Surely Internet-based university programs can be one significant way in which workers can keep up with the information and skills they need to remain valued employees. But commercial interests should not control academic standards, and students who enroll in courses through the Internet should be assured of both challenging material and appropriate attention from teachers. The academic world has been involved with the Internet almost from the beginning; it can continue this fruitful relationship by valuing educational concerns over cost- cutting.

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