Electronic Resources
Distance Learning Research and Publications
The American Center for
the Study of Distance Education (ACSDE)
The American Center for the Study of Distance Education (ACSDE), established
in 1988, seeks to promote distance education research, study, scholarship,
and teaching and to serve as a clearinghouse for the dissemination of knowledge
about distance education.
Columbia Center for
New Media Teaching & Learning (CCNMTL)
The primary mission of the CCNMTL is to support Columbia faculty in the use
of digital technologies for teaching and learning. However, the Center also
plans to share the successful technologies and curriculum models it develops
with the wider university community. This new site is the first step in that
direction. College educators and media lab staff will find a number of items
of use, including a Web Publishing Guide and overviews of ongoing projects
at the Center. Probably the most useful section of the site at present is the
EdCITE Reference Database of over 230 research and case studies on the effective
use of technology in education. Searchable by title, author, keyword, descriptor,
and discipline, the database offers citations to journal articles, Websites,
and other relevant information resources on technology in education. Citations
include author, title, source, resource type, date, education level, discipline,
an abstract, and whenever possible a link to the full text.
The Distance
Education at a Glance Series
In order to help teachers, administrators, facilitators, and students understand
distance education, Barry Willis, the Associate Dean for Outreach and the Engineering
Outreach staff present the following series of guides highlighting information
detailed in Dr. Willis' books, Distance Education - Strategies and Tools and
Distance Education - A Practical Guide.
International Centre for
Distance Learning (ICDL)
The International Centre for Distance Learning (ICDL) is a documentation centre
specializing in collecting and disseminating information on distance education
worldwide. They offer online and CD-ROM access to a distance education database
containing detailed information on courses, institutions and literature. There
is also a unique library collection covering all aspects of the theory and
practice of distance education and open learning. Also included is a list of
journals and newsletters on open, distance and flexible learning and a selective
bibliography for higher education institutions in Europe.
International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning Despite its title, The IRRODL is intended to be a journal in which readers can inform themselves about distance education developments in theory, research, and best practice. Our aim is to have all three elements present in every issue. Some articles will stress one of the elements more than the other two. Other articles will combine two or three elements. Ideally, the collection of articles selected for each issue will convey to readers an overall sense of balance among all three elements.
National Center for Education Statistics
The U.S. Department of Education conducted three comprehensive research studies
on the number of distance education courses, programs, and enrollments at
colleges and universities across the nation. These studies contain the most
complete descriptive statistics to be found anywhere on the status of distance
education.
Distance Education in Higher Education Institutions -- October 1997
Distance Education at Postsecondary Education Institutions: 1997-98 -- December 1999
Distance Education at Degree-Granting Postsecondary Institutions: 2000-2001 -- July 2003
New Chalk: A Biweekly
Featuring Instructors' Use of Networked Technologies
Few tangibles interconnect classroom instructors like chalk. From the ghost
images of old lectures to telltale white handprints on slacks and satchels,
the presence of chalk exists in our cultural mind and memory as the instructor's
tool, a means of illustrating knowledge and guiding learning. Whether it illustrates
Grog's method of mastodon hunting or the Pythagorean theorem, the Petrarchan
sonnet or molecular motion, chalk has earned its place in history. Chalk is
now a metaphor. This bi-weekly newsletter, New Chalk, hopes to build
on that metaphor by exploring uses and applications of "new" chalk:
networked instructional technologies. Each issue of New Chalk will focus on
real, practical examples of how instructors use the new technology in their
teaching. Reviews of these models will be brief and to the point, centered
on a common topic.
No
Significant Difference Phenomenon
This site provides selected entries from the book "The No Significant
Difference Phenomenon" as reported in 355 research reports, summaries
and papers - a comprehensive research bibliography on technology for distance
education. This 1999 book was compiled by Thomas L. Russell, is fully indexed,
and includes a foreword by Richard E. Clark.
The primary purpose of this site is to provide access to appropriate
studies published/discovered after the release of the book. In addition
to posting post-book entries on this site, a new section, under construction,
features comparative studies which DO demonstrate significant differences.
Studies are constantly being solicited for inclusion in either section--both
significant differences and no significant differences.