Now the main means of distance education is network education.
Classification of American Distance Higher Education
According to the forms and characteristics of online education, there are single mode, dual mode and alliance mode.
The so-called single mode means that colleges and universities that carry out online higher education take the network as the main teaching media, almost all courses are transmitted through the network, and a few courses use face-to-face and correspondence teaching as a supplement to online teaching. Such schools are represented by Jones International University and Phoenix Online University. Jones International University is the first online university in the United States to be certified by the Regional Higher Education Accreditation Association. All the teaching is carried out through the internet. The students in this school are mainly on-the-job adult learners, and the majors offered mainly focus on master of education, MBA and business courses. The University of Phoenix is one of the main members of Apollo Education Group in the United States, with more than 65,438+05,000 students. Taking academic education as an example, the courses offered mainly include business administration courses (including accounting, management communication, marketing, etc. ), vocational and technical courses (including computers, information systems, etc. ), health and nursing courses (including health management, nursing, health education, etc. ), education courses (including curriculum and teaching, preschool education, special education, education management, etc.). ), as well as social and behavioral science courses (including crime management, etc. From this, we can find that the characteristics of these two schools are that on-the-job adult learners are the teaching objects, and the courses offered are mainly vocational skills courses.
The so-called dual mode generally refers to the traditional teaching mode of online education in colleges and universities. On the one hand, face-to-face instruction is adopted on campus, and on the other hand, online higher education is carried out by using its own favorable resources and conditions. Most online higher education institutions in the United States belong to this type, such as Pennsylvania State University and the University of Illinois. The online courses offered by these two schools are divided into three categories: academic courses, vocational certification courses and continuing education courses. Majors include language, literature, religion, law, education, computer, mathematics, library science and public administration. The teaching level, academic standards and requirements for online learners are the same as those for students, and the degrees and academic qualifications obtained by graduates after completing online learning are exactly the same as those of students. The setting of traditional online courses in colleges and universities is often closely related to the disciplines, teachers and research fields of the school, because it can make the most effective use of the existing resources of the school.
The so-called alliance mode refers to the network higher education institutions established by traditional universities and multi-campus universities in the form of network education alliance by integrating their respective superior resources. It is a consortium, mainly responsible for enrollment, student management, course platform management, examination management, learning support and other peripheral work. The specific teaching and graduation certificates are issued by the members of the consortium. A typical representative is University Alliance Online, which is the largest online university alliance in the United States at present. It is composed of 1 1 member colleges, with more than 300,000 registered members. The main function of the alliance is to provide consulting services for students in the alliance, and to appoint a teaching consultant for each student registered in the alliance to provide guidance for their majors and courses. Another task of the alliance is to actively seek corporate customers, provide customized courses for enterprises, and provide professional skills training for employees through customized training programs. The teaching of students' courses and the issuance of graduation certificates are the responsibility of the member colleges in the selected alliance. The online university alliance is actually a loose alliance, and the relationship between member schools is cooperation and resource sharing. This will help member universities to jointly recruit students and improve the efficiency of student support and management.
The above is a relatively successful operation mode. I don't remember where they came from. If I remember correctly, it was the distance education in 2006.
According to the current situation of American distance higher education institutions, it can be divided into the following categories:
1. The mode of distance higher education institutions originated from traditional higher education institutions.
2. Emerging universities providing distance higher education services. These universities do not provide courses themselves, but specialize in distance education services. Courses and teachers are provided by traditional institutions of higher learning.
3. Distance higher education institutions that have their own courses and provide degree education. For example, Phoenix Online University was established in 1989. As a for-profit university, it provides a number of undergraduate and postgraduate degree education and has the right to award doctoral degrees in management.
The above is the classification of Zhu's articles in 2002, and there are many articles cited.
Personally, I prefer the former, because 2002 was a little early. Many distance education institutions cited in Zhu's article, such as California Virtual University and Western Governor's University, all ended in failure, and it is said that they lost a lot in a few years.
I've been doing it recently. I hope it works for you.