I suspect those of you already street wise in the realm of distance Ed have encountered this site before. Just in case there are those who have not, I will mention it anyway. It is the International Centre for Distance Learning. It is run by the 'Open University' in the UK. It has an extremely comprehensive list of British colleges and universities currently engaged in distance ed. There are a multitude of educational opportunities at a variety of levels, up to PhD. The site also listst colleges and universities worldwide. The address is: http://icdl.open.ac.uk/
Thanks for reminding us of this site. It has an awful lot of useful information, but I've long since stopped trying to get their attention about their unfortunate inconsistent listing procedure. For instance, in the US, they list a few (thankfully, only a few) schools accredited by the dreadful World Association of Universities and Colleges (e.g., Clayton College of Natural Health), as well as other unaccredited places (such as Mr. Hibbs' Franklin Institute in San Diego), while missing dozens and dozens of GAAP-accredited distance programs. So when something doesn't appear (such as Berne University, either as a US or a Caribbean institute), we can't know if it has been intentionally excluded or just missed.
Site Reliability I tend to use the site as a resource for information on the UK universities. I go by the assumption that they are more likely to be street wise on their own streets.
Re: University without walls? A consortium of accredited schools formed to develop innovative degree programs, aimed primarily at adults. The UWW program was conducted either at host schools (who would award the degree) or by the Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities (UECU). There were a few other, special interest, free-standing schools set up as UWWs as well, including one of the best-named schools ever, the now-closed Flaming Rainbow University. The UWWs awarded bachelor's degrees by learning contract. The UECU also developed a Ph.D. program run by the Union Graduate School. UECU quickly evolved from a consortium into a free-standing, degree-granting institution, and was, eventually, accredited. (Financial reasons, not academic ones, held that up.) The UWW programs were eventually disbanded, dissolved, or absorbed into the host institions. Union Institute and University (formerly the UECU) still awards its bachelor's degrees. Many other schools still run UWW programs, whether or not they still call them by that name. See http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~hendra/Purposes.html for more information.
