The Impact of Institutional Culture on On-Line, University-Based Professional Education: Two Case Studies

摘要

Increasingly, institutions of higher learning around the world are becoming interested in exploiting the capabilities of the Internet (and related technologies) for the delivery of instruction. For example, a recent roundtable forum on the topic of The Virtual University (Twigg & Oblinger, 1996) stresses the importance that on-line learning systems will have for universities, and that such changes will be both rapid and profound. While the openness of Internet delivery systems such as the WWW permits an easy and accessible means of examining the wide range of educational programs offered via this technology, what is hidden from such comprehensive or seemingly successful programs is the "institutional culture" that leads to the conception, design, development and evaluation of such systems (Rossner and Stockley, 1997). It can be presupposed that institutions seeking to install such delivery systems face a number of challenges, some of which are unique to the particular context of each school: the nature of the student population, the administrative, organisational or governmental superstructures surrounding it, the disciplines represented within it, and the preparation and enthusiasm of the faculty.