First school to offer Internet courses

What was the first accredited school to offer courses on the Internet?

I don't know but was thinking about this today when I passed the University of Phoenix's building in Indy.

 

I'd be interested in knowing this, too.

Curiously, the less-than-wonderful Vancouver University Worldwide claim of being the first school on the Internet has some legitimacy: they apparently had a presence on ArpaNet, the predecessor of Internet, nearly thirty years ago. I don't know how they used it.

The first university interactions on Arpanet took place in the early 70s among UCLA, Stanford, the U of Utah, and UC Santa Barbara, but I doubt if it involved coursework.

John Bear
Author: Computer Wimp: 166 things
I wish I had known before I bought
my first computer

 

I thought this might be Jimmy's version of a fall puzzler!

 

We'll let it be the Winter Solstice puzzler.

 

just in case anyone is interested in the internet timeline:

http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/

might help with determining first internet courses.

 

Thanks Fed. This is most interesting. However, there is an error of omission. There is no mention of Al Gore.

 

UoP Online was established in 1989.

IIRC, Nova (now Nova Southeastern) offered online degrees even before that, using Telenet/Tymenet. That was the first program of substance offering online degrees that I'd heard about. It was a non-PhD doctorate in training and technology. It has since been morphed into a PhD.

 

Thanks. You're always a wealth of information. Have a nice Thanksgiving.

 

I'm not sure about the first college to offer courses online, but I know Jones International University bills itself as the first university to exist entirely online and the first fully online university to be accredited by the North Central Association.

It's also interesting to note that the founder of JIU, Glenn Jones, helped launch Mind Extension University , which offered courses on cable TV channels. I remember seeing a channel which offered the courses years ago, but have not seen it in quite some time. I'm under the impression Mind Extension University is no longer around, but don't quote me on that.

 

Yeah... but at least Bear offers cool prizes.

What're you gonna' autograph and send the winner?

 

Interesting thread. Since you asked about courses I would say that NJIT was probably first given the work of Murray Turoff and Starr Roxanne Hiltz in the 80s. University of Wisconsin also offered online courses early on but I don't have much information on that. My old school started offering a degree program completely online in 1987 - authorized by the state of California in 1988 and accredited by DETC's predecessor NHSC in 1993 - we were the first online school to achieve any type of accreditation.

It's always interesting to see how the adjectives are used. Jones and UoP actually had to revise their message to include things like first regionally accredited and first 100% online school to gain regional accreditation when challenged by the DETC given ISIM's 1993 accreditation.

Mary