PDF & Related InfoComprehensive information about the courses available through distance education and enrollments in those courses has not been widely available. To address this gap in the knowledge base, this chapter provides information about the total number of distance education courses offered, and the number of college-level, credit granting distance education courses offered by general field of study and instructional level of the course (undergraduate or graduate/firstprofessional). The chapter begins with information about the number of distance education courses offered in 1997–98. The fields of study included in this report are then defined. The chapter concludes with discussions of course offerings and enrollments by field of study and instructional level of the course.
An estimated 54,470 different distance education courses12 were offered in the 12-month 1997–98 academic year by 2-year and 4-year postsecondary education institutions (table 6). This included both noncredit and credit-granting distance education courses designed for all types and levels of students, including elementary/ secondary, college, adult basic education, continuing professional education, etc. An estimated 49,690 different college-level, creditgranting distance education courses were offered in 1997–98, with most of those (35,550) at the undergraduate level. The remaining creditgranting courses (14,140) were at the graduate/ first-professional level. Consistent with the distributions of the percentage of institutions that offered distance education courses, most of the distance education courses were offered by public 2-year and public 4-year institutions (43,800 out of 54,470, or 80 percent, for total distance education courses, and 39,360 out of 49,690, or 79 percent, for college-level, credit-granting distance education courses).
Private 4-year institutions put particular emphasis on offering college-level, credit-granting distance education courses (9,740 out of 10,060, or 97 percent of their total distance education courses), while a somewhat higher percentage of distance education courses provided by public 2- year and public 4-year institutions were not college-level, credit-granting courses (table 6). At public 2-year institutions, 92 percent (18,860 out of 20,410) of their total distance education courses were college-level, credit-granting courses; at public 4-year institutions, 88 percent (20,500 out of 23,390) of the total distance education courses were college-level creditgranting courses. This may be because public and private postsecondary institutions have different institutional missions and constituencies, leading public institutions to offer more courses for other audiences, such as elementary/secondary or adult basic education students, or to offer more noncredit courses, such as continuing professional education for medical workers.
About half of the institutions that offered distance education courses in 1997–98 offered 15 or fewer different distance education courses; 23 percent offered 1 to 5 courses (figure 2). The distributions of courses are similar for the total number of distance education courses and for the number of college-level, credit-granting distance education courses. Two percent of the institutions that offered distance education courses offered only distance education courses that were not college-level, credit-granting courses. This included colleges offering courses below the college level (e.g., adult basic education), Bible colleges and seminaries offering noncredit Bible courses, and professional schools offering noncredit continuing education courses.
Institutions that offered distance education courses in 1997–98 were asked about their college-level, credit-granting distance education courses by general field of study and the instructional level of the course (i.e., whether the course was an undergraduate course or a graduate/first-professional course). The general fields of study provided on the questionnaire and examples of what is included under each are as follows:
Some of the categories of general fields of study are much broader than others.13 For example, the category of English, humanities, and social and behavioral sciences is very broad, while mathematics is very narrow. This can influence whether an institution offers courses (either on campus or through distance education) in that general field. In addition, some of the fields of study are much more specialized than others, and are offered (either on campus or through distance education) by fewer institutions than are many of the other fields. For example, courses in agriculture and natural resources and library and information sciences are offered by fewer institutions than are courses in physical and biological/life sciences. Some fields of study (both on campus and distance education) also vary by institutional type. For example, courses in agriculture and natural resources are offered primarily by community colleges and public landgrant universities, courses in vocational/technical fields are offered primarily by public 2-year community and technical colleges, and biblical and theological studies are heavily concentrated in religiously affiliated colleges and seminaries. Fields that are part of a general undergraduate education, however, such as English, humanities, and social and behavioral sciences, and physical and biological/life sciences, are much more likely to be offered (either on campus or through distance education) by most types of institutions.
All of these factors should be kept in mind when interpreting the following sections on courses and enrollments by fields of study.
About two-thirds (70 percent) of the institutions that offered any distance education courses in 1997–98 offered college-level, credit-granting distance education courses in the broad category of English, humanities, and the social and behavioral sciences; 55 percent offered for-credit distance education courses in business and management (table 7). About a third of the institutions offering any distance education courses in 1997–98 offered college-level, creditgranting distance education courses in the health professions (36 percent), physical and biological/ life sciences (33 percent), and mathematics (32 percent); 29 percent offered for-credit distance education courses in education; and 26 percent offered for-credit distance education courses in computer sciences. College-level, credit-granting distance education courses were offered in the remaining fields of study by 17 percent or fewer of the institutions that offered distance education courses in 1997–98.
The general pattern was for institutions to offer for-credit distance education courses in the various fields of study more at the undergraduate level than at the graduate level. For example, 71 percent of the institutions that had any undergraduate programs and that offered distance education courses in 1997–98 offered for-credit undergraduate distance education courses in English, humanities, and the social and behavioral sciences, compared with 22 percent of the institutions that had any graduate/firstprofessional programs offering for-credit distance education courses at the graduate/firstprofessional level (table 7). An exception to this general pattern was in the field of education, where 19 percent of the institutions with undergraduate programs offered for-credit undergraduate distance education courses in education, compared with 40 percent of the institutions with graduate/first-professional programs offering for-credit distance education courses at the graduate/first-professional level. For-credit engineering and library and information sciences courses were also offered more often at the graduate/first-professional level than at the undergraduate level.
Public 2-year institutions were more likely than public 4-year institutions, which in turn were more likely than private 4-year institutions, to offer for-credit distance education courses in English, humanities, and the social and behavioral sciences, physical and biological/life sciences, mathematics, computer science, and vocational/ technical fields (table 8). Public 4-year institutions were more likely than either public 2- year or private 4-year institutions to offer forcredit distance education courses in the health professions, education, engineering, agriculture and natural resources, and library and information sciences. For-credit distance education courses in business and management were about equally likely to be offered at public 2-year and 4-year institutions, which were both more likely to offer them than private 4-year institutions. Private 4- year institutions were more likely than either public 2-year or public 4-year institutions to offer for-credit distance education courses in the "other fields" category. A large portion of the courses shown in the "other fields" category consists of courses in biblical and theological studies offered by religiously affiliated colleges and seminaries.
The largest number of college-level, creditgranting distance education courses offered in 1997–98 was in the broad category of English, humanities, and the social and behavioral sciences, with 14,900 different courses (table 9). The next largest number of for-credit distance education courses was in business and management (8,160 different courses). These two general fields of study are also the fields in which the largest percentage of institutions offered distance education courses (see table 7). Large numbers of for-credit distance education courses were also offered in education (4,990), the health professions (4,440), engineering (3,950), and other fields (3,590; table 9). An estimated 2,400 different for-credit distance education courses were offered in computer science, 2,340 in vocational/technical fields, 2,160 in physical and biological/life sciences, and 1,730 in mathematics.
As with the percentage of institutions offering distance education courses, the general pattern in the number of for-credit courses offered was for more courses to be offered at the undergraduate than at the graduate/first-professional level (table 9). For example, this was the case in fields that are part of a general undergraduate education, such as English, humanities, and the social and behavioral sciences, physical and biological/life sciences, and mathematics. The exceptions to this pattern were the fields of education, engineering, and library and information sciences, where the number of courses offered was higher at the graduate/first-professional level than at the undergraduate level. Possible reasons for the number of distance education courses offered in these fields being higher at the graduate/firstprofessional level include emphasis on graduate education in these fields, the ability to convey graduate-level course content in these fields using distance education, and the likelihood that groups of students would be located in one place (such as a school district or engineering firm) to receive an instructional broadcast that was targeted to them. For example, many teachers are required to obtain a master's degree to continue teaching or to receive increases in their pay, and school districts sometimes accommodate this requirement by arranging for distance education courses in education to be received at a site in their district that is readily available to teachers. Technologyintensive fields such as engineering are likely to require constant updating of knowledge and skills beyond the bachelor's degree, and may be more amenable to distance education than fields that require laboratory work, such as biology and chemistry. For example, Stanford University has been using its instructional television network to broadcast graduate courses in engineering to corporate sites throughout the country for nearly 30 years (Chronicle of Higher Education, June 20, 1997).
Public 2-year institutions offered more for-credit distance education courses than public 4-year institutions in English, humanities, and the social and behavioral sciences, business and management, computer science, and mathematics (table 10). Public 4-year institutions offered more for-credit distance education courses than public 2-year institutions in the health professions and education. For engineering, agriculture and natural resources, and library and information sciences, there were too few cases for reliable estimates of the number of courses offered at public 2-year institutions. For private 4-year institutions, the number of courses offered could not be reported for most of the fields of study because there were too few cases for reliable estimates. Where the data could be reported, the number of for-credit distance education courses offered by private 4-year institutions was lower than at public 2-year institutions in English, humanities, and the social and behavioral sciences and in business and management. The number of for-credit distance education courses offered by private 4-year institutions was lower than at public 4-year institutions in English, humanities, and the social and behavioral sciences and in the health professions. The number of for-credit distance education courses offered in the "other fields" category was higher for private 4-year institutions than for public 4-year institutions.
Institutions were also asked to report about enrollments in college-level, credit-granting distance education courses by general field of study and the instructional level of the course. Enrollments may include duplicated counts of students, since institutions were instructed to count a student enrolled in multiple courses for each course in which he or she was enrolled. As discussed in chapter 2, there were an estimated 1,363,670 enrollments in college-level, creditgranting distance education courses in 1997–98.
The largest number of enrollments in collegelevel, credit-granting distance education courses was in the broad category of English, humanities, and the social and behavioral sciences, with 537,220 enrollments (table 11). There were also relatively large numbers of enrollments in business and management (212,620). These two general fields of study were also the fields with the largest number of courses offered (see table 9).
As with the distributions of credit-granting distance education courses offered, the general pattern for enrollments was for there to be more enrollments in courses offered at the undergraduate level than in courses offered at the graduate/first-professional level (table 11). The exceptions to this pattern were in engineering and education, where enrollments were higher in courses offered at the graduate/first-professional level than in courses offered at the undergraduate level. The field of library and information sciences also shows higher enrollments at the graduate/first-professional level than at the undergraduate level, but the difference is not statistically significant, due at least in part to so few institutions offering distance education courses in this field.
Public 2-year institutions had higher distance education enrollments than public 4-year institutions in the following fields (see table 12): English, humanities, and the social and behavioral sciences, business and management, physical and biological/life sciences, mathematics, computer science, and vocational/technical fields. The number of enrollments in the broad category of English, humanities, and social and behavioral sciences is particularly large at public 2-year institutions; it accounts for about half of the distance education enrollments at these institutions. Courses in this broad category constitute a large portion of lower division coursework at the undergraduate level, suggesting that many of the enrollments in distance education courses at public 2-year institutions could be used to fulfill lower division course requirements. Distance education enrollments at public 4-year institutions were higher than at public 2-year institutions in education; the difference for the health professions was not statistically significant. As with the number of courses offered, some of the enrollment data by field of study cannot be reported for private 4- year institutions because there were too few cases for reliable estimates. Where the data could be reported, enrollments at private 4-year institutions were lower than at public 2-year and public 4- year institutions, except in the "other fields" category, which did not differ significantly.
There were an estimated 54,470 different distance education courses offered in 1997–98 (including courses designed for all types of students), and an estimated 49,690 different college-level, creditgranting distance education courses, with most of these in courses at the undergraduate level. This is consistent with the pattern of enrollments discussed in chapter 2. The largest numbers of courses and enrollments were in the broad category of English, humanities, and social and behavioral sciences. There were also large numbers of enrollments in business and management, education, and the health professions. With the exceptions of engineering, education, and library and information sciences, the general pattern was for the numbers of courses to be higher at the undergraduate level than at the graduate/first-professional level. As with the distributions of distance education courses offered, the general pattern was for there to be more enrollments in courses offered at the undergraduate level than in courses offered at the graduate/first-professional level.
12 If a course had multiple sections or was offered multiple times
during the academic year, institutions were instructed to count it as only one course.
13 In preparing the list of general fields of study for the questionnaire,
considerations included the time institutions would have to spend
in sorting their courses into the various categories, distinctions
between the fields of study, and some general assumptions about
the prevalence of distance education offerings in various fields.
These assumptions were based on discussions with institutions
during the survey development process, and articles on distance
education from media sources such as the Chronicle of Higher
Education.
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