A Survey of Distance Education Challenges and Technologies <s> Summary <s> Advanced technologies like the World Wide Web offer interesting opportunities for improving higher education. A study done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) focused on these matters and made several specific recommendations. Since this study was completed, a new center was established at MIT to coordinate and promote the use of advanced technologies in education, and a high-level council on educational technology was formed. After briefly peering into the future, this paper describes the study and the new center. <s> BIB001 </s> A Survey of Distance Education Challenges and Technologies <s> Summary <s> The rapid growth of the Internet and the media-rich extensions of the World Wide Web allow new developments in the way instructors transfer knowledge to their students. There is no doubt that nothing will replace synchronous learning through face to face interaction but it is sometimes not feasible for students to attend conventional classes due to distance or time constraints. This paper presents a model for using information technology to enhance the learning experience for conventional on-campus students, as well as for those students whose circumstances require that they be asynchronous in time or space. The approach described emphasizes a solution which allows students to attend the class in real time via the Internet, or to access asynchronously digitally stored video material with hyperlinks to online training resources at any time. The proposed solution permits interaction in real-time and asynchronously among students and between students and instructor, which is a key for effective learning. In addition, the instructor maintains a significant level of spontaneity in using multimedia material prepared in advance or using conventional chalkboard or hand written materials via traditional overhead projection. The paper describes the technical issues involved and the chosen solutions to provide enhanced live and archived classes. This paper provides some comments on the evaluation of the learning experience using this method of delivery for on-campus and distance education students. Finally the authors share their vision on future trends to improve the proposed learning environment and the need for an optimal balance between expositive teaching and active learning for both synchronous and asynchronous activities. <s> BIB002 </s> A Survey of Distance Education Challenges and Technologies <s> Summary <s> This paper analyzes the issues surrounding, and the use of distance learning technologies for education and training of the government acquisition workforces of the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. <s> BIB003 </s> A Survey of Distance Education Challenges and Technologies <s> Summary <s> Since 1997, Georgia Tech has been delivering courses across the Atlantic to its sister campus in France using streaming media. Our experience has shown that there are two significant obstacles that must be overcome before faculty and students are ready to embrace this technology, and accept this delivery mechanism for distance learning courses. First, in order for faculty to become involved in the development of "online" courses, the production process must be easy and convenient. Second, before either faculty or students are willing to go "online", both must be convinced that there are advantages to an Internet-based course over video-tapes and, in fact, advantages over a classroom, such as searching and indexing, assessment, and the ability to view or re-view a lecture "on-demand". In this paper, we describe some of our efforts over the last year to overcome these obstacles. First, we describe a "turnkey" system that we have developed for producing streaming media lectures that makes the production of online courses very easy. Second, we describe some of our work in creating a database from Postscript slides that is used in a powerful and effective information retrieval system. <s> BIB004 </s> A Survey of Distance Education Challenges and Technologies <s> Summary <s> This study examines how students enrolled in two Web-based sections of a technical writing class performed compared to students enrolled in a conventional version of the class. Although no significant difference in student performance was found between the two learning conditions, our data reveal intriguing relationships between students' prior knowledge, attitudes, and learning styles and our Web-based writing environment. One finding that we focus on is that reflective, global learners performed significantly better online than active, sequential learners, whereas there was no difference between them in the conventional class. Our study highlights the complexity of effective teaching and the difficulty of making comparisons between the online and the classroom environments. In particular, we maintain that the transfer of active learning strategies to the Web is not straightforward and that interactivity as a goal of instructional Web site design requires significant elaboration. <s> BIB005 </s> A Survey of Distance Education Challenges and Technologies <s> Summary <s> This paper presents the current trends in Internet-based training by experimental work. The authors show how to apply the "learning by doing" paradigm in Internet-based distance learning, both for academic educational environments and life-long training systems, taking into account available computer and network resources. Firstly, the different phases in the learning process are introduced. The aim of this introduction is to show to the readers the importance of the learning by doing paradigm, which is not implemented in many Internet-based educational environments. Then, they identify the most important trends in this field which can be classified into two main groups. The first one consists of accessing the real equipment through an Internet interface. The second is based on simulation, very often, Java-based simulation. Both approaches are discussed, including brief descriptions of currently available systems that implement them. Finally, these approaches are compared from different points of view. They point out the most significant variables to bear in mind and, as the readers may find a tradeoff between some of them, they also provide a graphical guide to help them in their choice. <s> BIB006
We point out challenges of distance education, as well as important research issues in this article. Experiences in the literature show that, distance education has a great impact not only to high-level education, but also to industrial training. A study report and the discussion of a distance-learning center established in MIT are discussed in BIB001 . A complete report of this study is available at http://www-evat.mit.edu/report/. The impact of information technology to high-level education is also discussed in  . Experiences of using multimedia and distance education tools in online teaching and conventional classrooms are discussed in BIB002 . The analysis of distance-learning issues in U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand is reported in BIB003 . The "learning-by-doing" BIB006 ) paradigm for distance leaning in traditional university and life long training was also proposed. The access of real equipments using Internet and the use of Java-based simulation tools are compared, with several analytical parameters presented to the readers. But, what are the basic requirements to make a successful system? Two factors make instructors and students to use online distance-learning tools, such as video-based lectures are, firstly, the production process must be easy, and secondly, there must be advantages to overcome in-class teaching. The paper BIB004 points out these reasons. A comparison of two sections of students enrolled in technical writing class, one in a conventional class and the other in a Web-based environment, is presented in BIB005 . Although no significant difference of student performance is found, there are small differences of learning style and attitudes. Moreover, a complete report known as "The No Significant Difference Phenomenon" (http://teleeducation.nb.ca/nosignificantdifference/) collects a set of quotations back to 1928. The report surveys 355 references. The above reports and experiences show that, distance learning seems to be promising. But, what will be the future of distance education? Will e-learning be another "dotcom" issue? That is, will the impact of e-learning decreases or even vanishes? Perhaps we do not have an answer today. However, from the development of new technologies, we see a few issues of future distance education: • Bring outdoors to indoors: Virtual reality-based communication and situated learning use augmented panorama and real-time communication technologies in a distance-learning CAVE. Students can feel and experience with outdoor facilities inside the classroom. • Bring indoors to outdoors: Wireless communication for encyclopedia and E-books will be available. Outdoor students can participate to a lecture, use online references, or read class notes. • Edutainment: Education will be easier and more interesting. It is possible to use game technologies in education, to attract students and to increase their motivation. • E-commerce: E-learning will be a commercial activity. Knowledge is for sale in the future. • E-inequality: Each virtual university has its own uniqueness and focus. But, it is possible that a virtual university dominates a particular area of distance-learning courses. • E-problem: It will be a less people-centric natural of learning. With a large number of project-oriented courseware available, an individual student will choose a focus for training. That is, students will adapt to course sequences more as compared to course sequences are designed for students. The expected great success of distance learning and the virtual university paradise is still not coming. Even if technology can support such an operation, there still remains some sociological and methodological problems. It is questionable, whether it is political, or technical, for the society to approve virtual university degrees. However, distance learning is now very active in missionbased instruction, and in community-based lifelong education. We hope the academia, the government, the engineers, and the society can work tightly toward the great success of distance education.