Application and Implications of Information Technologies in Postsecondary Distance Education: An Initial Bibliography

摘要

Although distance education has been around in various forms for over a century, the revolution in information and communications technologies (ICT) that began in the 1980s has sparked significant expansion and renewed interest in distance education. The combination of widespread use of personal computers, the growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web, and reductions in telecommunications costs have facilitated new ways of designing, delivering, and administering distance education. As these new ICT-enabled forms of distance education become more prevalent and widespread, questions have arisen about their effects for example on learning, students, faculty, and the organization and administration of higher education. These and other questions about the application of ICT in distance education are active subjects for research and analysis. This report provides a brief overview of postsecondary distance education, some descriptive statistics about its size and scope, illustrative findings from existing research about the implications of ICT in postsecondary distance education, and an initial bibliography of this research.