The use of technology to facilitate education and the provision of an entire higher education degree has exploded in the last two decades. Social work educators have been a part of that trend and have started to utilize distance education (DE) technologies. There is a growing literature regarding the efficacy of DE instruction in social work, and…

The Open University of Catalonia (UOC) was established as public, online university and thus has grown quickly with the global interest in online courses. However, like other dedicated distance-education institutions, UOC has had challenges adapting to MOOCs, and the emergent world of Web 2.0 learning technologies. To meet these challenges, UOC…

Online distance learning or distributed learning (i.e., learning via the Internet and the World Wide Web) can be regarded as one of the fastest mainstreamed instructional delivery systems and technologies introduced in higher education. Naturally with such a fast introduction of a radically new instructional innovation, major stakeholders were…

Several years ago a senior APS colleague challenged the leaders of academic programs to critically think about a preferred future for ensuring that there is not only the capability, but also the willingness to recognize and reform and/or reframe higher education programs within FANRRS to meet the challenges of "preparing society ready…

The purpose of this study was to examine how the mode of instructional delivery, campus face-to-face or online, affected dropout relative to students' academic and demographic characteristics. A quantitative study was conducted to analyze the academic and demographic characteristics of newly admitted, matriculated degree-seeking students (N = 640)…

Proceedings of an international conference on adult and external degree programs are presented. Selected papers are drawn from the areas of distance learning, support services, intra-institutional, curriculum, and teaching. They include: "Uses of Distance Education for Graduate Professional Degrees" (Ruth J. Person and Raymond Vondran); "Library…

Major issues that must be addressed by colleges and universities that offer Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs on a distance basis are discussed. Three distance MBAs programs currently in operation are also compared: those of Deakin University in Australia, the University of South Africa, and the University of Strathclyde in Great…

This report examines the efforts of the University of Hawaii system to adopt and implement outreach programs to residents of areas without four-year and graduate-level educational institutions. Data on current programs were gathered through a questionnaire sent to officials at the University of Hawaii's three university and seven community-college…

This document contains three papers presented at a symposium on university instruction in human resource development (HRD) moderated by Janice Black at the 1996 conference of the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD). "Facilitating Transfer of Learning from the Classroom to the Workplace" (Brenda S. Gardner, Sharon J. Korth)…

Past and current features of the master's degree and planning implications are considered. After outlining the traditional master's degree, five recent trends are addressed: specialization, professionalization, application, decentralization, and depersonalization. The number of special master's degree programs has grown, and many programs lead to…

Nontraditional students are the fastest-growing segment of the postsecondary population. About 41% of students are over 25, and nearly 12% are over 40. Previously, the bulk of financial aid went to traditional-age, usually full-time, students in degree programs. Today, however, the sheer numbers of nontraditional students, including distance…