For a different slant on the economic viability of DL take a look at the May issue of TICKER at www.Ticker.com. Rafael
David Noble's Nightmare I hope David Noble doesn't read this article, poor guy won't sleep for a week.
If you mean the article "Online Education Wired for Future Gains" at http://www.ticker.com./story.htm?story_id=1226 -- it's interesting, and has some useful nuggets of fact, but it also sufferes from the hype and misconceptions that are all too often found in stories about online learning. For example: "Before the Internet, the only ways to learn outside the classroom were watching educational videos, enrolling in correspondence courses, or reading books and journals." Not quite. There were also telecourses (which they may be lumping in with correspondence); there were off-campus classrooms linked by audio/video to the campus. And there was assessment of prior learning (through whatever method) through exams and portfolios. "E-learning has replaced the correspondence course and opened the doors of world-class libraries to students in remote areas." Not quite. Many universities still offer correspondence courses. Students may have the option of corresponding via fax and email as well as mail, but they're still correspondence courses. And library services are one of the areas in which a lot of work needs to be done. "Online courses offer lower cost and convenience." Online courses don't always cost less. Just look at the complaints about U of Phoenix tuition.
