LISNews: Librarian News

Hermit ;-) writes \"The LAtimes.com has
a story on Chinese
students getting their degrees through distance education programs offered by colleges here in the states. The programs face considerable but surmountable challenges, one of which is the poor resources available to the students in China, \"\"The libraries are pathetic,\" one professor lamented.\" What\'s amazing is the comparatively staggering costs these students are willing/able to incur for a U.S. education. One of the students \"spent about $12,000 on her education, in a country where households are lucky to make a tenth of that amount in a year.\" Ouch. \"

The recently convened Web-based Education Commission was made up of a diverse group of businesspeople, lawmakers and educators, including John Gage, director of science for Sun Microsystems, Rep. Johnny Isakson (R-Georgia), and Florence McGinn, a teacher and founder of an online literary magazine. (one has to ask where the librarians were.)

The recent report released by the commision has received mixed reviews. These varying opinions are available in this article, \'E-Learning is Good; Now What?\', from Wired Magazine.

The NYTimes has a Story that talks about the growth of Distance Learning at colleges and universities in the US. 44 percent of all higher education institutions offered distance learning courses in the 1997-1998 academic year and 79 percent of traditional four-year public universities were offering some form of distance learning during the 1997-1998 academic year.

It\'s all about the profits.....