NEW STUDY PROVIDES BENCHMARKS FOR QUALITY DE - The Institute for Higher Education Policy has released the final report on its new study of quality in distance education programs, Quality on the Line. The study explores best practices at six experienced distance education providers: Brevard Community College, Regents College, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Maryland University College, Utah State University and Weber State University. The 24 proposed benchmarks of quality are divided into seven categories: 1) Institutional Support, 2) Course Development, 3) Teaching Learning, 4) Course Structure, 5) Student Support, 6) Faculty Support and 7) Evaluation & Assessment. For the Report's executive summary CLICK: http://www.ihep.com/qualityonline.pdf (Requires Adobe Reader) (infocus, a newsletter of UCEA May/June 00 5[5] - for UCEA's homepage CLICK: http://www.nucea.edu)

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FACULTY OWNERSHIP OF COURSES - Duke University's Academic Council has approved a policy that allows faculty members to maintain ownership of all courses while protecting against conflict of interest. The policy will allow faculty to keep ownership of all online courses they create as individuals. However, courses that are created through work-for-hire arrangements, or created using substantial Duke resources, will become the property of the university. Many courses may fall in between, and a committee will determine ownership of those courses. The policy is expected to have the full support of both faculty and administrators. Although Duke's distance-education program isn't as extensive as those of other institutions, university officials wanted to implement a structure capable of accommodating a larger program. CLICK: http://info.ecollege.com:80/UM/T.ASP?A18.87.17.4.4175. (eCollege.com eNewsletter - Educators Working for Educators 1 June 00 Ð1[3]).

THE LIBRARY AS THE LATEST WEB VENTURE - Libraries are entering the Digital Age with the advent of electronic library research companies such as Ebrary.com and Questia Media. Electronic library projects are intended to help users do scholarly research, not to be confused with the electronic book industry, which is focused on the popular reading experience. Companies are hoping to appeal to Internet-savvy students who consider cyberspace more efficient than the stacks. NetLibrary already allows users to view books online for a limited period of time, but its relatively modest number of books and publishers' objections to the subscription system has hampered success. Ebrary.com plans to have 600,000 volumes online by its fall opening, compared with NetLibrary's 18,000 copyrighted books. Furthermore, publishers can make money each time a user views the scanned book pages with Questia, and each time a user prints a page with Ebrary.com, compared with one-time library profits. Some have expressed concerns about public libraries turning into profit-making ventures, taking low-income access to online materials into account. But other librarians say electronic libraries will ultimately lead users back to traditional libraries for closer reading. (New York Times, 15 June 00 - Edupage 16 June 00)

NEA REPORT - The NEA has released a new report on faculty attitudes and experiences with distance learning titled "A Survey of Traditional and Distance Learning Higher Education Members." The report is the third in a series to gauge national trends and attitudes related to distance learning. Faculty members at a range of US institutions, including community colleges and universities, were interviewed. The 53 page report can be downloaded, CLICK: http://www.nea.org/nr/nr000614.html According to a summary in the Chronicle of Higher Education faculty members are: 1) worried about the amount of time it takes to prepare and teach a distance-education course and 2) concerned they will have to do more work for the same amount of pay as a result of the proliferation of distance education. However, 72% said they were positive about courses they taught compared with 51% of faculty members who had not taught distance classes. For the entire Chronicle article, CLICK: http://www.chronicle.merit.edu/free/2000/06/2000061501u.htm.