University of London established an off-campus course on 1858, which is the first school to offer a degree in distance education. [2] A community to promote family learning was established in Boston, Massachusetts on 1873. In Australia, the University of Queensland established the Department of Communication 19 1 1. [3] South African universities also set up communication education courses as early as 1946. 1960 Massey University in New Zealand offers distance education and off-campus courses at the university level. British universities in the UK have established the largest distance learning course at 1969. Some systems formulated by the Correspondence University in Hagen, Germany in 1974 have been widely used in the world since then. Most of them are named open universities (in English or local languages), and many of them have been transformed into giant universities (new universities that can recruit more than100000 students).
Charles Wedemayer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is known as the father of American distance education. During the period of 1964- 1968, with the support of Carnegie Foundation, he ran the Articulated Teaching Media Project (AIM), which used different communication technologies to provide relevant courses for people outside the school who needed them.
According to Moore's account, the British who introduced AIM were deeply influenced by it, so the first open university, the Open University of Britain, was established to distinguish it from other open universities. British universities were founded at the end of 1960, with television and radio as the initial communication tools. Therefore, the status of British open universities has been promoted to a pioneer in promoting education through science and technology. Since then, it can be said that all open universities have used distance learning technology as a way of communication.
Many public and private, non-profit and for-profit institutions offer courses and degree courses through distance education. However, the certification standards are different, and the distance education provided by some institutions in the United States is rarely recognized, and may even be a forged diploma workshop diploma. In many other jurisdictions in the United States, institutions that are not recognized and authorized by the national government cannot use the word "university". In the United States, online teaching has rapidly promoted exchanges between universities, and the online doctoral program has even developed into a credible research system. [4]
In the 20th century, radio, television and Internet were further used in distance education. Computers and the Internet also make the spread of distance education easier and faster. [5] Phoenix private university, for profit, mainly focuses on online teaching. There are 200,000 students now, and it is expected to increase to 500,000 in 20 10. However, in such a rapidly developing system, little is known about students' efforts. [6]
According to the report of Si Long Associates in 2006, in the fall semester of 2005, nearly 3.2 million American students in more than 96% colleges and universities used at least one online course.
Thompson river University (TRU) is a pioneer in providing distance education in Canada. The educational goal of thompson river University is that anyone can study at any time and place. It includes more than 400 separate courses and more than 57 plans to complete their studies through distance learning, such as the Open University, from which they can obtain bachelor's degrees, associate's degrees, university diplomas, various bachelor's certification certificates and graduation certificates.