Distance-Independent Education

Recent articles on Distance Education

• US Copyright Office Study on Distance Learning, responses to study, etc.
• Online Course Problems at U of Iowa, Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov 16, 1999
• Author Warns Students -- and Colleges -- to Avoid On-Line Education, Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov 3, 1999
• A Top-Drawer Education Online, Wired News, Nov 12, 1999
• Julie Hooke, Distance Education: The Perils of the Virtual Student in Cyberspace, Journal of Electronic Publishing, 5:1, Sept 1999
• At Iowa, an Experimental On-Line Course for 1,900 Students Runs Into Trouble, Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov 16, 1999

Spring 1999 articles on Distance Education

• Studies of Distance Education Are Mostly 'Questionable,' Report Says, by Goldie Blumenstock, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 7, 199
• What’s the Difference?  A Review of Contemporary Research on the Effectiveness of Distance Learning in Higher Education, Report from the Institute for Higher Education Policy, April, 1999
• The Marketing Intensifies in Distance Learning; Some educators value the options; others fear vendors set the agenda, by Goldie Blumenstock, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 9, 1999
• Distance Learning: Education.com by Peter Applebome, New York Times, April 4, 1999
• Lack of Funds Puts California Virtual U. in Danger, by Goldie Blumenstock, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 19, 1999
• A Debate Over Ownership of On-Line Courses Surfaces at Drexel, by Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 1, 1999
• University's Cyber Classes Spark Faculty Concerns, by John D. McKinnon, The Wall Street Journal, Florida Journal, July 15, 1998

Howard's Distance Learning papers, journal articles, etc.

• Digital Delivery of Instructional Support Materials: How will our learning institutions change?,  Talk to Learning Resources Association of California Community Colleges, March 3, 2000, Sacramento
• Special Issue on Distance-Independent Education  , Journal of the American Society of Information Science 47(11),  Nov 1996   (official table of contents)
• Issues and Challenges for the Distance-Independent Environment, Journal of the American Society of Information Science 47(11), Nov 1996 online access restricted to users within the UC Berkeley domain
• The Impact of Distance-Independent Education, Journal of the American Society of Information Science 47(11), Nov 1996 online access restricted to users within the UC Berkeley domain (co-authored with Maria Bonn)
• Interactive Distance-Independent Education: Challenges to Traditional Academic Roles, Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 38 (1), Winter 1997, pages 35-42 (co-authored with Maria Bonn)
• Multimedia and Networks Teach about Museums: Issues in Maintaining a WWW Site to Facilitate Distance Learning, in David Bearman (ed.), Multimedia Computing and Museums (Selected Papers from the Third International Conference on Hypermedia and Interactivity in Museums), Pittsburgh: Archives & Museum Informatics, 1995, pages 124-140
• Distance Learning in the Humanities & Social Sciences: Doing it, Supporting it, and Looking at its Impact, Howard Besser's lecture to Advanced Information Technologies Group and Digital Library Research Program, University of Illinois, February 10, 1997 (Real Audio)

Curricular Support Material on the Web

Howard's Projects, Courses

• Experimental Michigan Berkeley Distance class, Winter 1995  (course evaluation  |  classroom images)
• Project to provide online web-based delivery of course materials for UC Berkeley undergraduate courses (also taught as a course from 1997 on)
• Ongoing course on the Impact of Multimedia and Networks (content on the Web since 1994)
• The Museum Educational Site Licensing Project (MESL), an experimental project to provide digital images and metadata for campus instruction and research.

Howard's Papers

• Difficulties of Implementing and Maintaining a WorldWide Web Site to Support Instruction, Revue Informatique et Statistique dans les sciences humaines, 1996, 32(1-4), pages 11-28 online access restricted to users within the UC Berkeley domain
• The UC Berkeley Mellon Study of the Cost and Use of Digital Images as part of the MESL project

Copyright Issues

• Copyright Office Study on Distance Learning released May 1999
• American Library Association commentary on the Study
• IUPUI's Copyright Management Center's analysis of the study
• general testimony and process as part of the study
• Howard Besser's notes for his Feb 2 1999 testimony at Copyright Office Hearings
• Howard's prepared and oral testimony for their Hearing)
• Howard's issues about Copyright and Distance Learning
• Fair Use is even more important in a Distant setting
• Often the only way to get timely analog material to distant students is to digitize it
• Much digital material under license to a campus won't be available to distant learners for some time in the future (if ever) because of both problems with authentication systems and rightsholders' fears of leakage
• In order to get material to their students in a timely manner, teachers frequently invoke Fair Use.  Most people anticipate that rightholders will invoke invoke protection mechanisms to prevent commercial exploitation of their digital works. Under anti-circumvention legislation, faculty who try to make Fair Use of a work that has been digitally protected may find themselves engaging in criminal activity, even if they would have had a legal right to that Fair Use if the material was in analog form.
• Though colleges and universities see Distance Education (and particularly life-long learning) as a major growth area, this entire growth area is likely to be stunted and scrapped by protectionist copyright laws

Misc

• Education as Marketplace, Howard's book chapter from Muffoletto, R., Knupfer, N. (1993) Computers in education: Social, historical, and political perspectives, New Jersey: Hampton Press. (online access restricted to users within the UC Berkeley domain
• Digital Diploma Mills, by David Noble (Oct 97-Nov 98)
• Library Juice, special August 1999 issue on Distance Learning
• Howard's Web Teaching, Instructional Technology links
• Links to other distance-independent education sites (from 1996)

Return to Howard's Homepage (http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~howard)