THE STATE OF DISTANCE EDUCATION IN THE U.S. - "Distance Education at Postsecondary Education Institutions: 1997-98," a recently- release report from the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), "provides estimates of the number of institutions offering distance education courses, the number of distance education course offerings and enrollments (by field of study and instructional level) and the number of degree and certification programs offered. It also looks at the types of technologies used to deliver education over a distance and at how tuition and fees for distance education compare with those for on-campus courses." 5,010 public and private postsecondary institutions were surveyed. Trend information is provided with the inclusion of data covering 1994-95 that was collected for an earlier report.

The complete report is available in PDF format on the Web at: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2000013.

NCES is part of the U.S. Department of Education. It is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data that are related to education in the United States and other nations. For more information and links to other NCES reports, link to: http://nces.ed.gov/. (CIT INFOBITS Mar 00 No. 21)

COLLEGE WEB SITES GAIN ACKNOWLEDGMENT - According to college administrators, college Web sites are the third most important source of information for prospective students, subordinate only to campus visits and face to face conversations with other students. These educators believe that the university Web sites are not only important but also efficient communication tools that will eventually replace traditional methods of promotion, like brochures and guidebooks. (Washington Post, 28 Mar 00)

NEURAL NETWORKS MAY TRANSFORM COLLEGE PLANNING - Johns Hopkins University is testing the use of an artificial neural network to determine which applicants are likely to enroll in the school. The neural network is a statistical model that imitates the ability of neurons in the human brain to learn patterns. By looking for patterns in student data, the neural network finds the common characteristics of applicants who enroll at Hopkins. Admissions officers could use the neural network to predict which students are likely to enroll and which are not, using the information to decide how many students to accept to ensure a full class. Richard Reeves, who invented Hopkins' neural network last spring using StatSoft's Statistica software, says 50 percent of universities will use neural networks in 10 years. Although colleges already use statistical models to predict how many students will enroll, tests at Hopkins showed that the traditional model had an error rate of 6 percent while the neural network had an error rate of 3 percent. The technology used in neural networks has been available for many years, but only recently have hardware and software become powerful enough and cheap enough to make neural networks viable for common use. (Chronicle of Higher Education, 24 Mar 00 Ð Edupage 27 Mar 00)

FOUR-PART PREDICTION SERIES (cont'd) - 16 Predictions for Higher Education

5 - The distinction between distance and local education will be blurred. Almost all courses will be digitally enhanced. There will be a small group of colleges that will carve out a market niche by maintaining "live faculty instruction" in their course delivery.

6 - Seamless education between high school, undergraduate college and graduate programs will be the norm. Incentives will be given to students and institutions to move students through their programs at a fast rate.

7 - The home-school movement will lead to a home-college movement.

8 - The remaining campus-based colleges and universities will increasingly move to responsibility-center management and will outsource many functions now done by the institution.

TO BE CONTINUED... (Samuel L. Dunn, VP for Academic Affairs and a Professor of Business and Mathematics at Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, ID)