Introduction

In an age of tightening education budgets and a perpetually increasing load on the education system, society is seeking to find new and innovative solutions for our future educational needs. The explosion in world population and technological development, coupled with an increased need for continuing education and declining interest in the education profession, threatens to bring our current system of education to its knees. Amidst these concerns, the spotlight has been cast on Distance Learning and the possibility that quality distance education programs may provide some solutions for educating existing and future generations. While the distance education programs of the past were hindered by a lack of interactivity between instructors, students, and their peers, the information technology revolution of the past two decades can, and will, provide the means to cost effectively bridge this gap.

Distance education is strategic to the 21st century university. While the first and second generations of distance education were delivered through print and broadcast media respectively, the third generation of distance education requires interactivity. Interactive technologies from the convergence of telecommunications and computers span distance but also foreshorten time. The ability to increase the speed of access and cycles of feedback has fundamentally reshaped the way that the economy and business work in today's world. (University System of Maryland, 1996)