Friday, October 12, 2001

Major Telecourse Providers Team Up to Deliver Course Videos Online By JEFFREY R. YOUNG Some of America's largest producers of televised college courses announced this week that they plan to deliver some of their course videos over the Internet starting in January 2002. The telecourse providers hope the new on-demand delivery option will be more convenient for some students than traditional methods -- receiving videotapes through the mail or relying on broadcast or cable television -- and that it will better integrate the video segments with new online supplements. The streaming-telecourse project will involve three non-profit groups that produce documentary-style telecourses: Coast Learning Systems, Dallas TeleLearning, and Intelecom. The actual online delivery will be coordinated by the Seattle Community College District, which has been delivering telecourses through its World Wide Web site for the past year as part of a pilot project. The groups plan to have 31 telecourses ready to offer online by January, in time for the spring semester. Colleges that offer and grant credit for those telecourses will have the option of making the online-video segments available via their own Web sites, but each student must pay a $55 fee to use the service. That amount is what students are charged to rent course videotapes from RMI Media Productions Inc., which is coordinating the billing for the online-video service. "It's a convenience factor" for students, said Dan Jones, an administrative dean at Coastline Community College, which operates Coast Learning Systems. "They don't have to rent videotapes, and they'll be able to view [the courses] at their desks anywhere." Not everyone will be able to tune in to the online video streams, however. Students must have broadband Internet connections to view the courses -- which means they need to use cable modems, digital-subscriber lines, or high-speed corporate or academic networks. A dial-up modem, which is still the way many home users log on to the Internet, is not fast enough to handle high-resolution video. Some telecourse officials estimate that only 2 percent of their current students have broadband connections at home. But the project's leaders predict that students will use the new Internet service. "There is a huge demand," said Ross Davis, general manager of television and cable operations for the Seattle Community College District, who is helping coordinate the online delivery service. He added that telecourse providers have had "lots of requests from colleges all around the country to provide streaming telecourses." And those involved in the project hope that the online option will help spur more colleges to offer telecourses through their online distance-education programs. RMI Media plans to begin a "mailout campaign" about the service next month to every college and university in the United States, said David L. Little, president of the company. Documentary-style telecourses date back to the earliest days of television, and they remain a popular option. Some experts estimate that more people take courses each year delivered by television -- whether via interactive video networks, videocassettes, or cable or broadcast stations -- than take courses on the Internet. The telecourses are usually divided into 26 segments of a half-hour each. Students who enroll in such telecourses are asked to watch the programs and read recommended textbooks and workbooks. Colleges that deliver and grant credit for the telecourses generally assign an instructor to manage each course and to grade assignments and examinations. Tuition is typically the same as for classroom-based courses, although telecourse students may have extra technology charges or videotape-rental fees. Mr. Jones of Coastline said he hoped the service would help make telecourses a more "fully integrated package." "Currently, you have the textbook, you have the video, and you have the Web, and the components are not integrated together in a way that makes it easy to utilize them," he added. The online video project was announced early this week at the annual TeleLearning Conference in Costa Mesa, Calif. Background article from The Chronicle: Telecourses Change Channels (7/13/2001) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

Senate committee's spending bill goes beyond Bush's proposal on financing of stem-cell studies Lawmakers add student-privacy protections to proposed antiterrorism legislation Salary survey shows gender gap in life sciences Bethany College of West Virginia to cut tuition by 42% Threat of arrest keeps player accused of rape from returning to Notre Dame for football game U.S. Education Dept. gives $8.7-million for centers to improve special education Federal agency permits public TV to include advertising in new digital services Law professor sparks a new debate over flaws in digital-copyright act The Web has made terrorist groups more dangerous, scholar says  Major telecourse providers team up to deliver course videos online