The real revolution now taking place is not the hardware of technology, but the intellectual technology of information, communication, and the augmentation of human intelligence.

All too often, discussions about web-based learning tend to fall back on a simplistic faith in the power of technology. Of course interactivity is a powerful draw for teachers and students alike. But dazzling technology has no meaning unless it supports content that meets the needs of learners.

Some of the content currently available on the Web is excellent, but much of it is mediocre. Challenges await content developers and educators in producing, distributing, cataloging, indexing, and evaluating good online content. They must address gaps in this market, find ways to build fragmented lesson plans into full courses, fully develop the promise of postsecondary educational opportunities on the Web, and assure quality in this new environment.

State of the Market

The educational content market is a huge business. Total U.S. spending each year on textbooks and instructional technology content (e.g., software and online course materials) amounts to approximately $4 billion. Online content currently represents only a fraction of that market, although many expect the Internet to both capture a large share from offline content sources, such as textbooks, as well as expand the size of this market overall.1 According to one report, 13 percent of K-12 schools already subscribe to online curriculum.2

Traditional content providers-publishers and software developers-are increasingly joined by new providers of online content. Federal agencies, museums, teachers, and even students themselves are contributing to web-based content. Much of the online content consists of data, Web pages, applets, and other information that teachers use as supplements to text-based teaching, rather than full courses. For example, the U.S. Department of Education sponsors the Gateway to Educational Materials, containing more than 14,000 lesson ideas and learning resources from over 200 organizations.3

Many private-sector providers have changed their focus from producing content to aggregating instructional information, acting as a "portal" or access point for other content-based resources and information provided by teachers and schools. For example, bigchalk.com aggregates "best of class" content and makes it available to subscribing schools through community Web sites.4

However, only a handful of providers have been able to take advantage of the online education content market. That is because the market is highly fragmented (products and services are targeted by age, grade, and subject matter and marketed to over 15,000 school districts) and often finite (demand tends to be limited to the number of students taking any given class at any given time-the number of 7th graders taking Algebra in the U.S. in 2000, for instance). The cost to compete in these specialized sub-markets is high, forcing many providers to retreat and instead produce "big ticket" general studies content (usually in the K-6 range) that historically have provided a greater rate of return.
As a result of this fragmented and finite market, there are areas where online content produced by the private sector is of limited quality or quantity. And, because the content is generally produced to match state academic standards or the assessments of major testing programs, it may reflect a limited emphasis on inquiry learning, project based activities, or collaborative learning models.

There are gaps in specific subject areas as well-in foreign language materials, higher level courses in math and science, and other thin markets. Moreover, much of the online content fails to address the interests of cultural or ethnic groups. One survey, for example, found that only 2 percent of Web sites target Americans who do not speak English as their first language. In the same survey, only 6 percent of low-income users reported finding content that met their needs.5

School districts and states may soon be faced with a paradox. Overall market growth, along with expansion of the delivery mechanism (i.e., the Internet), may not, by themselves, be enough to sustain robust competition and innovation in product design, capability, and customization.

Unless school districts and states create significant demand for innovative online learning materials, it may not be economically feasible for many online education content providers to stay in the business. The result could be a latter-day online equivalent to the current K-12 textbook market-domination by just a few providers, limited choice, and perhaps, stagnancy in innovation and design.

The good news, however, is that some states are beginning to respond by investing in approaches that provide web-based content for educators, when and where they need it.

The Massachusetts' Virtual Education Space (VES), for example, will provide every K-12 student, teacher, and parent a personal "workspace" they can log onto with an Internet browser and personal password. Students will have access to assignments, content linked to their specific learning objectives, works-in-progress, and portfolios of completed work. Teachers will be able to access state and district curriculum standards related to their teaching areas, and a database of content and lesson plans linked to the standards. Collaboration, planning, administration, and assessment tools will also be at the teacher's access. Parents, too, can access their children's assignments, work to date, and teacher evaluations of progress.6

Washington State is partnering with Massachusetts, developing its own version of this program called WAVES. Several other states (New York, Oregon, Wisconsin, and New Jersey) are discussing working together in development of similar "smart desktops".7 Some school districts have developed their own instructional management systems that use the Web to help teachers organize and manage instruction more effectively and efficiently. Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia testified that it is investing upwards of $100,000 to develop several web-based high school courses for its students.8

PreK-12: Moving From Online Materials, to Courses, to Full Programs

While there are thousands of online lesson plans and supplementary course materials at the preK-12 level, full courses are more limited. Most have been developed by state, district, or cross-regional online high schools.

State-created online high schools offer courses that parallel those required in the traditional high school curriculum of the state. As more states are developing virtual high schools, (e.g., Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexico) a greater range of courses are being offered online.

Another model is the Virtual High School (VHS) Project funded through a U.S. Department of Education Challenge Grant to the Hudson, Massachusetts School District and operated by the Concord Consortium. VHS offers over 156 courses to about 250 schools in 32 states and 13 countries. Many of these courses are taken as electives rather than core curriculum requirements. At VHS, the per student tuition fee can be waived if a school creates an online course or facilitates a section of a course that students in any participating school can take. Course design is structured around VHS guidelines and practices taught to teachers through their required participation in the yearlong VHS teacher developer course.9

Advanced Placement (AP) courses are an important gateway helping to prepare students for college. Many schools do not have either the in-house expertise or enough students to warrant hiring a teacher to offer advanced placement courses. Today only 60 percent of high schools offer AP courses, with the average high school offering only about 5 AP courses out of 32 subject areas. A private sector provider, APEX Learning, is providing courses in 10 AP subjects online, as well as other services like AP preparatory materials online.10

Evaluation of preK-12 online courses follows the model of traditional education. That is, these courses are certified by the home state or regional accrediting body with jurisdiction in that state. This task becomes considerably more complicated in the case of courses offered across state lines. Assessment requirements, teacher credentialing, and the granting of credits have all been areas of individual state policy. This means that an offering entity may have to traverse a complex maze of accreditation standards that can vary from state to state.

Online Content and Courses at the Postsecondary Level

At the postsecondary level, there is a growing use of online content and tools for both traditional courses and those taken at a distance.11

· Nearly 40 percent of all college classes used Internet resources as part of the syllabus in 1999, compared with 15 percent in 1996.

· More than 25 percent of all college courses have a Web page compared with 9.2 percent in 1996.

· Three-fifths (59.3 percent) of all college courses now utilize electronic mail, up from 54.0 percent last year, 44.0 percent in 1998, and 20.1 percent in 1995.

· Similarly, two-fifths (42.7 percent) of college courses now use Web resources as a course component, up from 10.9 percent in 1995, 33.1 percent in 1998, and 38.9 percent in 1999.
· Almost one-fourth (23.0 percent) of all college faculty have a personal Web page not linked to a specific class or course, compared with just 19 percent in 1999.

Instructors add online resources to their classes to:

· Make readings, original sources, or specialized materials more easily accessible to their students.

· Encourage more out-of-class student reflection and interaction among students or with the instructor.

· Meet the expectations of students who increasingly anticipate that courses will be supplemented with online materials or discussions.

The greatest technological concern of higher education faculty, like that of K-12 teachers, is finding the best ways to integrate technology to enhance their classes. And for them, like their K-12 colleagues, training is essential for addressing the special requirements of integrating web-based learning tools and applications.

First, the online faculty themselves must be comfortable using the available communications technologies. They also need assistance in designing courses that take full advantage of the medium, and the strategies and skills to communicate with students electronically in the absence of visual and oral cues.

Creating a course for online delivery can take much longer, anywhere from 66 percent to 500 percent longer than creating traditional courses, and costs are widely variable.12 Even adding online components to an existing course takes time. And it adds a new set of risks: teachers, department chairs, and deans must be prepared for negative course evaluations from students as the faculty experiments with these new approaches.

Faculty must be prepared to be available to their students for online communication-answering questions and grading online materials promptly and assuring that students stay connected to the class. Institutions must be prepared to provide faculty with tools and assistance for appropriate online instructional design.

Additionally, faculty that have not yet acquired tenure often shy away from using technology creatively in their courses because it may be viewed as a distraction from their "primary tasks" of research, scholarship, and publishing.

Rather than "reinventing the wheel," higher education institutions are forming collaborative groups to assist faculty in finding and developing quality online teaching materials for courses. The Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT)13 is a collection of online learning materials and support resources to help faculty enhance instruction. Membership is open and free; faculty submit materials to 12 discipline committees responsible for developing evaluation standards, conducting peer reviews of learning materials within a discipline, and making connections with their professional organizations.

Growth is just as dramatic in courses developed entirely for
online delivery:14

· Approximately 84 percent of four-year colleges are expected to offer distance learning courses in 2002, up from 62 percent in 1998.

· Today U.S. colleges and universities offer more than 6,000 accredited courses on the Web.

· In 2002, 2.2 million students are expected to enroll in distributed learning courses, up from 710,000 in 1998.

While traditional site-based institutions are adding distance learning courses to their offerings, new players are exploiting the burgeoning demand for online educational courses and programs. They realize that the market is no longer limited to the students who can come to the campus. With 15 million students enrolled in higher education in the United States, and another 84 million students enrolled in higher education around the world, there is a substantial market for bringing courses to the students, rather than students to the courses.15 Some online providers are offshoots of existing public institutions while others are private institutions funded through public companies. Still others are "born on the Web" virtual institutions that leverage the power of the Internet and operate entirely online.

Assuring High Quality at the Postsecondary Level

How is the quality of online course and program content to be assured in this arena of new providers, new pedagogical techniques, and new course designs?

There is widespread agreement that web-based courses should be held to the same high standards required of traditional courses and programs. Public higher education institutions receive their accreditation from regional accreditation agencies (New England, Middle States, Southern, North Central, Western, and Northwestern). The Distance Education and Training Council is one of the major national accrediting associations for a range of public and private distance education institutions. While program accreditation is voluntary, the accrediting agencies set high standards and include a comprehensive study aimed at assuring that a program meets the educational goals it has set for students and faculty.

While voluntary accreditation and self-regulatory agencies are an important quality control mechanism for web-based learning, there are a number of areas that national, regional, and specialized accreditors should address in the future, including:16

· Determining whether new accreditation review standards and practices are needed and developing these tools where appropriate

· Providing assistance to institutions, programs, and new providers to develop internal quality review procedures for web-based learning

· Exploring whether and how the regional accrediting agencies should expand beyond their traditional focus on non-profit institutions to include more for-profit institutions

· Developing an improved capacity for course accreditation to accompany institutional and programmatic accreditation

· Strengthening coordination among accreditors to respond to web-based learning with agreed upon standards

· Creating partnerships for review of web-based learning where appropriate with other external quality reviewers

Two major concerns about program accreditation loom above all others. One is measurement: quality assurance has too often measured educational inputs (e.g., number of books in a library, number of Ph.D.s on the faculty) rather than student outcomes. The other is federal regulation that is tied to funding of students or eligibility for Title IV student financial assistance based on these input measures. (See following section for a full discussion of these regulatory issues).

The situation is further confused by a lack of commonly understood criteria of what constitutes accreditation. There are both illegitimate distance education "colleges" and disreputable "accrediting" agencies. It is difficult for members of the public to distinguish between these accrediting agencies and the quality control they provide. This suggests developing greater public awareness through consumer education programs. The U.S. Department of Education could take the lead by supporting consumer awareness programs that identify recognized accrediting agencies, and by publicizing and explaining their standards. Legislative language in the 1998 Higher Education Act Amendments confirms congressional support for a voluntary system of accrediting higher education institutions and programs, but the range of programs and new providers suggests the need for better clarity in what accreditation means for the consumer in this new era.

The Bottom Line Test: Does it Work?

One question gets to the heart of the content quality issue: Is online learning as effective as other forms of learning? According to a recent review of contemporary research on the effectiveness of distance learning in higher education,17 the short answer is "yes." Distance learning courses compare favorably with classroom-based instruction and enjoy high student satisfaction.18 Based on a limited number of studies that take into account student outcomes (grades and test scores) and satisfaction, students in distance learning courses perform as well as their counterparts in traditional classroom settings, earn similar grades or test scores, and display the same attitudes toward the course.

But the caveat with this study is one heard in much educational research: the research base is limited and has shortcomings both in scope and methodology. Although more research is needed, the field has begun to develop benchmarks for evaluating effective distance learning programs. For instance, an Institute for Higher Education Policy report recently developed for the National Education Association and Blackboard, Inc. identifies 24 benchmarks that are necessary to ensure quality in Internet-based distance education. These benchmarks are grouped around the following topics: institutional support; course development; teaching/learning process; course structure; student support; faculty support; and evaluation and assessment.19

ENDNOTES
1. Moe, Michael and Henry Blodgett. The Knowledge Web. p. 16. Merrill Lynch & Co., Global Securities Research & Economics Group, Global Fundamental Equity Research Department. 2000.
2. Market Data Retrieval. Technology in Education 1999. Shelton, CN. 1999
3. For more information, see http://www.thegateway.org
4. bigchalk.com. e-Testimony to the Web-based Education Commission. August 18, 2000. http://www.webcommission.org/directory
5. The Children's Partnership. Online Content for Low Income and Underserved Americans: A Strategic Audit of Activities and Opportunities. 2000. http://www.childrenspartnership.org/pub/low_income/index.html
6. Driscoll, David, Massachusetts Education Commissioner. Testimony to the Web-based Education Commission. September 14, 2000. http://www.webcommission.org/directory
7. Ibid.
8. Domenech, Daniel, Fairfax County Public Schools. Testimony to the Web-based Education Commission. September 14, 2000. http://www.webcommission.org/directory For more information, see http://www.fcps.edu/IMS/
9. Rose, Raymond, Concord Consortium. Testimony to the Web-based Education Commission. June 26, 2000. http://www.webcommission.org/directory. For more information, see http://vhs.concord.org
10. Pennington, Randy, APEX Learning. testimony (for Sally Narodick) to the Web-based Education Commission, June 26, 2000. http://www.webcommission.org/directory. For more information see http://www.apex.netu.com
11. Moe and Blodgett. op.cit. endnote 1. p. 172
12. American Federation of Teachers. e-Testimony to the Web-based Education Commission. August 18, 2000. http://www.webcommission.org/directory
13. For more information, see http://www.merlot.org
14. Moe and Blodgett. op.cit. endnote 1. p. 172
15. United States. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (2000). The Condition of Education 2000, NCES 2000-602. Washington, DC. 2000.
16. Council for Higher Education Accreditation. Testimony to the Web-based Education Commission. February 2, 2000. http://www.webcommission.org/directory . For more information, see http://www.chea.org/
17. The Institute for Higher Education Policy.. What's the Difference? A Review of Contemporary Research on the Effectiveness of Distance Learning in Higher Education. Washington, DC. 1999. http://www.ihep.com/PUB.htm
18. Mayadas, Frank, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Testimony to the Web-based Education Commission. September 15, 2000. http://www.webcommission.org/directory
19. Institute for Higher Education Policy. Quality on the Line: Benchmarks for Success in Internet-based Distance Education. Washington, DC. 2000. http://www.ihep.com/PUB.htm