NEW SURVEYS ON ONLINE LEARNING AND TEACHING - Two survey reports related to the use of the Internet in teaching and training are now available online. "Online Teaching in an Online World" looks at the preferences of 222 college instructors who have used the Web to share syllabi and course resources in the World Lecture Hall or MERLOT.org The report examines instructor training, support, resource exchange, e-learning attrition rates, decision-making and tool preferences. The second report, "Online Training in an Online World," based on survey responses of 201 corporate trainers, looks at the types of training offered online, organizational factors limiting the adoption of e-learning, preferred e-learning instructional approaches and e-learning assessment. For the full article see: http://publicationshare.com/ (infocus Newsletter of UCEA vol. 7 no 2, Mar 02)

HIGHER EDUCATION DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT - SCT, a provider of e-education solutions for colleges and universities, and Software Services of Delaware, Inc. (SSD) signed an agreement that will allow SCT to resell SSD's document management technology in the higher education market. SSD is the provider of Easy Admit, a customizable form-scanning solution developed for higher-education admissions processing. The system reduces data entry requirements by processing student applications and other forms, including handwritten materials. Key information is electronically extracted through optical character recognition technology from admissions forms and automatically uploaded into SCT Banner, a document management solution jointly developed by SCT and OTG Software, Inc. In addition, SCT and SSD will look to expand the use of OCR/ICR capabilities into areas beyond admissions, such as financial aid and human resources. For more information, visit:
http://www.sct.com/industrysolutions/education/index.htm (Syllabus News, Resources,
Trends, 26 Mar 02)

EVALUATION STRATEGIES FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION - "The many factors involved in the success of distance offerings makes the creation of a comprehensive evaluation plan a complex and daunting task. Unfortunately, what may seem the most logical approach to determining effectiveness is often theoretically unsound. For example, comparing student achievement between distance and face-to-face courses may seem a simple solution, yet the design is flawed for a number of reasons. However, theoretically sound approaches do exist for determining the effectiveness of learning systems, along with many different methods for obtaining answers to the relevant questions." In"Measuring Success: Evaluation Strategies for Distance Education" (EDUCAUSE QUARTERLY, vol. 25 no 1, 2, pp. 20-26), Virginia Tech faculty Barbara Lockee, Mike Moore and John Burton explain the factors to consider when evaluating distance education (DE) programs. Sharing the experience gained from DE evaluations at Virginia Tech, they provide guidance to readers who want to set up evaluation plans at their institutions. The article is available online (in PDF format) at http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm0213.pdf (Requires Adobe Reader)

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For more on DE evaluation, see "Relevant Assessment Strategies for Online Colleges
& Universities" (USDLA JOURNAL, vol. 16 no 1, Feb 02) by Brent Muirhead who teaches in the Master of Arts in Education (MAED) program in curriculum and technology for the University of Phoenix Online (UOP). The article is available online at
http://www.usdla.org/html/journal/FEB02_Issue/article04.html CIT INFOBITS, Feb 02)