The following web sites relating to Distance Education contains description of distance education programs, specific examples of distance education programs, and some links to other related topics.
DESCRIPTION OF DISTANCE EDUCATION
This first web site http://members.tripod.com/~aer_2/index.html is a site by the Amazon book store. The site gives some general information about distance education. They answer some frequently asked questions about the effectiveness of such programs, their worth, and if a person can fit this type of education into a busy schedule.
EXAMPLES OF DISTANCE EDUCATION PROGRAMS
You can find many specific examples of distance education by looking at University/College web sites. Of course the MSU Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources has a web site http://www.canr.msu.edu/aee/gradprog/certprog.html which holds information concerning the Certificate Program in our department and includes a listing of courses for a certificate.
Penn State has a web location http://www.outreach.psu.edu/DE/welcome.html describing their distance education program. They are making their best academic programs available to people anytime and anywhere. They offer five associate degrees, a dozen certificate programs, and a post-baccalaureate program.
The University of California at Davis has a Distance Learning Campus. This web site http://universityextension.ucdavis.edu/DistanceLearning/index.htm explores their latest courses, what they are trying to develop, and details about the courses.
The following web site location http://www.otan.dni.us/cdlp/ is an excellent source for both learners and instructors. It is a site for the California Adult Education Distance Learning Project. The project is sponsored by the California Department of Education's Adult Education Office and is managed by the California State University Institute. The objective of the program is to establish a California Adult basic education distance learning infrastructure.
Another site I found was the Global Distance Education Net http://www.globaldistancelearning.com/. This site was designed to help clients of the World Bank and others interested in using distance education for human development. The site has links on designing courses, communication between teachers/learners, organization, and maintaining a distance education system.
My final specific example of a distance education program comes from the Wahsa Distance Education Centre in Ontario, Canada . The centre was established in 1990 as a First Nations High School to provide adult learners the opportunity to complete secondary studies. Their classroom spans over 200,000 square kilometers of bush and semi tundra.
PAPERS AND RELATED TOPICS
I found some papers from faculty members at the University of Nebraska in the Agricultural Leadership Department. The first paper is titled "Faculty Education, Assistance, and Support Needed to Deliver Education Via Distance." The second paper is titled "Incentives and Obstacles Influencing Faculty and Administrators to Teach Via Distance." http://www.ianr.unl.edu/ianr/aglec/html/research.htm.
The following site http://www.ouhk.edu.hk/cridal/journal/index.htm provides information concerning English and Chinese language journals that publish materials relating to the topics of Distance, Open, and Adult Education. It can be used as a means for finding other sources and research on theses areas. You may also use this site as a source of the requirements needed by these journals if you were to submit your own manuscript.
The http://www.edsurf.net/edshack/links.htm is a site which is a starting site for other internet sources related to distance education. One link which I found quite useful was a page from the University of Colorado http://www.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc_data/distance.html which had a listing of a literature review of papers written on distance education