In this article we describe a graduate program for practicing teachers at the University of Florida. Offered in a blended format (mostly online but supported by a local faculty member), the program embeds graduate work within school reform efforts in hard to staff schools in partner school districts up to 350 miles away from campus in order to…

The Great-Plains IDEA Gerontology Program is a graduate program developed and implemented by the Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance (Great Plains IDEA). The Great Plains IDEA (Alliance) originated as a consortium of Colleges of Human Sciences ranging across the central United States. This Alliance's accomplishments have included…

This paper reports on the design and evaluation of a UK University's global eLearning MBA programme. The aims of the research were to investigate the learning experiences of the students on the course and to evaluate the effectiveness of the support system so as to improve the programme. The primary research method was a longitudinal…

Eight Canadian universities partnered to establish a Collaborative Health Informatics PhD/Postdoc Strategic Training Program (CHPSTP). The 6-year goal was to increase research capacity in health informatics in Canada. Three cohorts of 20 trainees participated in the training, which included online Research Learning Experiences, annual face-to-face…

With contemporary requirements for objective measurement, program evaluation is a certain necessity. Most program evaluation is designed in response to external demands for assessment. Moreover, such evaluation is typically developed only after programs already exist. However, the proliferation of online learning provides new opportunities for…

A purpose-built blend of teaching and learning activities was used with trainee teachers on a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) course, and subsequently evaluated in a cyclical action research study, over a period of two years. The purpose of the blend was to engender the formation of a learning community, by giving them access to each…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not the principles of assessment in online education are reflected in the assessment activities used by the developers and administrators of actual online distance courses. Three online distance education programs provided at a large mid-west university were analyzed; the School of Continuing…

The author summarizes three studies comparing attributes of on- and off-campus engineering graduate programs. The studies represent data and experience gained from lecture-based technical graduate programs with highly motivated off-campus students and corporate support. The studies compare student characteristics, graduate performance, and…

Describes how to design an interactive course for the Internet, using as an example the development of a graduate course entitled Accessing Information through Technology. Course design includes development of a needs assessment, goal analysis, student assessment, instructional strategy, and course evaluation. (SM)

Examines the Fridays Only part-time/distance education program of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois. Provides a history of the program and a composite of a typical day for the Fridays Only student; discusses strengths and weaknesses from the perspectives of the students, faculty, and…

Describes an online distance learning component within an Australian Master's-level science education course which included a weekly online forum and in-person sessions, analyzing students' contributions to the forum, course evaluation forms, and post-course group interviews. Students valued the online component, but many were unskilled in…

This paper presents a program overview of library services to distance education students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). In the fall of 1997, a survey on use of library services was sent to students in an interdepartmental master's program. Questions focused on the use of the library online catalog, the World Wide Web, and the…

These four papers are from a symposium that was facilitated by Neal Chalofsky at the 1995 conference of the Academy of Human Resource Development (HRD). "Using Critical Incidents in Teaching HRD: A Method for Fostering Critical Reflection and Dialogue" (Hallie Preskill) reports study findings that confirm the value of the activity in its…

This paper evaluates the use of interactive video for teaching graduate-level deaf education courses. Graduate students in teacher education, including 10 urban and 3 rural students, were enrolled in 2 different off-campus courses taught from the University of Kansas. Students in both classes responded to a survey near the end of the course and to…

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…