college online courses, their development, pros and cons

When we talk about e-learning we are desingning the process of education by which students can learn and be taught different knowledges, thanks to the use of new technologies and communication devices. The prefix “e-“ englobes electronic means of communication (not only the Internet, but also multimedia like webcams, cd-rom devices, DVD, etc.). for each student there is a tutor, who consists in a kind of professor, who is usually never met personally. The learning can be done at any time, according to the convenience of the customer/student. We should notice that the concept of “e-learning” applies both to the learning at college online and the corporative learning. In the market of online courses online, we can note some enterprises that lead the market, and that we name and describe as follows:

1) ELEMENTK

1º: Elementk is an enterprise that, according to its website, “is the pioneer in e-learning since 1996”. They offered “the first online course, in which the rhythm of learning is chosen by each student. Moreover, it names itself as the leader enterprise in e-learning market. As some examples of its customers, we can name: Coke, America Online, Kodak, IBM, Toyota, Goodyear, multimillionaire businesses. Element K also announces that Owens Corning, leader en construction materials, will use e-learning contents for 10.000 employees.

As we can see, e-learning can be very useful, not only for having college online, but also for other courses.

2) SKILLSOFT and SMARTFORCE

2º: Skillsoft and Smartforce given the merging that occured in 2002, formed a huge corporation as regards e-learning. Among its clients we can mention the Government oF Australia, Toyota, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Manpower, Merck, Cessna, Yahoo and PSCU financial services. Skillsoft offers 4000 hours of interactive education, 1500 courses on business simulation, finances assessments, communication and so on. Between smartforce and skillsoft there are 3000 corporatives customers.

3) CISCO

3º Cisco is an enterprise that develops e-learning and college online in several aspects. Not only contents, but also hardware. It offers services for transports (airports, ports, etc.), manufacturing companies, governments and other environments, such as universities, colleges online, virtual campus. Its market is expanded all over the world: AFRICOM (Zimbabwe), amd Soft Net S.A in Argentina are two examples that show how CISCO can be associated with partnerships all over the globe.

4) TECNONEXO

4º Tenocexo is an enterprise located in Latin America. Among its more important clients we can find HSBC Argentina, CTI Argentina, Repsol YPF, Argentinian university of Enterprises (Aue), Argentinian Catholic University (ACU), Technological Institute of Buenos Aires (TIBA), San Andrès University and Nestlé México. The conclusion is the same: big customers that pay big amounts of money. Even though the money earned is less, earnings are very high.

5) FORMACIÓN E-LEARNING

5º Specifically in College Online services, we have to mention Formación e-learning, website dedicated to academic formation in several topics. The site is autonamed as “the first portal dedicated to college online formation and multimedia”. Between the topics offered we can mention journalism, marketing, environment, computers and new technologies. It is a spanish business.

6) COMPETIR.COM

6º Competir.com is leader in Argentina, regarding College online formation. As for 2002, numbers indicate it was giving courses to 150.000 students. Its motto is “en the new economy , knowledge is the key to success”, shows us how is the general opinion about this new aspect of education, that is College online formation.

7) PUNTOCURSO

7 Puntocurso is an enterprise that offers professional courses online, related to the adequate us of computational software for different areas related to design, engineering, arquitecture, focusing on work productivity. It’s a branch of Abstract Group and offers training on Adobe, Macromedia, Pathtrace and Discreet, among others.

8) DISTANCE EDUCATIONAL NETWORK, COLLEGE ONLINE EDUCATION NET

8º It is an enterprise that develops contents for different institutions that speak Spanish, dedicated to forming students online. They offer courses on law, humanities, software and hardware, health topics and general knowledge. It is very important, as it provides the source for different colleges online, all over the world.

To understand more clearly what e-learning means, and what is implied when we talk about college online, it is extremely necessary that we clarify on some concepts that are crucial to getting to this point:

a) Digital signature: it allows to detect if an information was violated when being tansmited from one point to another. It generates, from the side of the signer, a fingerpint encoded in an algoritm. The fingerprint encripts together with the signer key, giving as a result the signature, that will be attached to the original fingerprint.

b) Online education: process in which students and teachers are separated, in different locations and never get to know each other. When the interface used is Internet, we talk of e-learning, or college online.

c ADL (Advanced distributed learning). Inniative sponsored by the Department of Defense of the USA and the Office of Science and Technology of the Whitehouse, to ease the development and distribution of educational contents based on the internet.

d) SCORM (Shareable content object reference model). SCORM is used as the rolemodel to develop, pack and manage the distribution of units for college online education. From SCORM we can come up with for concepts, related to contents:

- reusable: modifiable by the means of different tools.

- accesible: publishable and findable by different systems and tools.

- interoperable: able to work in different systems server and client.

- Endurable: adaptable to new systems without requiring any modifications.

d) asinchronic formation: process of learning typical in every e-learning content. The interaction between student and teacher never converges in time and space.

e) Sinchronic formation: process of learning in real time, where interaction between student and teacher takes place simultaneously.

f) API (Application program interface). Group of conventios regarding programming (functions and methods), that define how you can call a service from a program.

g) ARIADNE: Alliance of Remote Instructional Authoring & Distribution Networks for Europe. It is a network between universities and enterprises, financed by the 4TH Program in the Europe Union , whose aim is to help in the development of educational contents for college online education and other courses.

h) Blended learning: combination of methods, both sinchronic formation, and asinchronic formation. It is very extended in corporations.

i) CBT: Computer based training. Formation based on computers. Contents are presented through CD-Rom.

j) CMI: Computer Managed Instruction

l) Courseware : any software or application regarding educational contents.

m) Learning technology standards committee (LTSC) of the Institute of electrical and electronics engineering (IEEE): its principal aim is to develop technical standards, recommendations and guides for the informatic implementation of learning systems for college online courses.

n) IMS (Instructional management system) global learning consortium. It’s an association between enterprises, governmental organizations to support the development of technologies in online education. The aim of IMS is support the adoption and use of learning technologies all around the world.

o) Multimedia: interaction of different media (text, images, audio).

p) IT (information technology): it is a group of technologies that form the information society. Internet, multimedia, etcetera, and telecommunication systems that distribute them.

Where is e-learning heading for today? We can say, as a general conclusion, that nowadays it is very popular the e-learning related to matters of university, education and corporations. Even though there are lots of courses taking by businessmen, we can say that they follow the general scheme of college online courses. As Jorge Orozco says, ‘as well as other countries, in mexico we can see a very huge gap between technological development and the educational contents available (in quantity and quality).

There are some cons that universities or virtual campus suffer, compared to big enterprises: while educational institutions prefer college online education, big corporations prefer blended learning, mixing both distance formation and traditional education, so they can take advantage of the best possibilities of each system.

Moreover, Latinamerica is a very poor region, and there are very few users that can make use of broadband, so quality of e-learning and college online courses for education are very limited. The potential of the system is very limited by economical topics.

Some figures that can tell how the nowadays situation is are as follows: in the USA, the elearning business was estimated in 2003 in 11.400 million dollars , whereas in Europe the amount calculated raises up to 5.000 million euros.

It’s a fact that e-learning expansion is going up, thanks to the development of bi enterprises.

E-Learning and college online courses in Argentina:

According to a report of the Association of Institutions related to college online courses and educational technologies (Aicocet), for 2003 the e-learning in Argentina developed a lot in petrol enterprises and big banks, and less in publi services and telecommunication enterprises and little enterprises. The study took into account 86 enterprises. In this growth it was very important the blended learning, that played its role in every business. Moreover, we should say that the preference towards e-learning, in enterprises, is due to economic matters:with this system, enterprises reduce laborable hours, travels and wages. 78,3 per cent of the corporations claimed that they will continue to use e-learning for the next three years. Last but not least, e-learning activity, both for enterprises and college online courses, grew 650 per cent in the last two years, having developed a very intense exporting activity, specially in contents for latinamerican countries, an activity in which Argentina is a pioneer country.

In spite of this development for the enterprises, as regards college online courses, universities, and educational virtual formation, there is an economic obstacle: in Argentina there are very few users with broadband access to the Internet.

There is also some resistance, in lots of institutions, to this type of formation, because they feel it is very contrary to what tradition education claims. It is obvious that the problem lays on the absence of resources that would make the institutions prone to access to e-learning contens and digital material for their online campuses and to develop a college online work.

E-LEARNING and college online courses for education in Latin America

The situation in the rest of the region is not very different from that in Argentina. The development is growing but very slowly. In chile, the 6 percent of the enterprises saves up to 45 per cent in costs on training employees with the implement of e-learning. There is a very important measure about to develop in Mexico, where there is a very big problem regarding digital gaps. They will try to develop a governmental plan, in which they plan to open 20000 community centers in the whole mexican territory, open to the general public. The aim of such plan is to have resources every 5 miles from each city and village. The idea in small villes is that every 3000 inhabitants they can have access to 20 computers.

IS THERE A LEGAL SUPPORT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF COLLEGE ONLINE COURSES AND E-LEARNING SYSTEMS?

There are actually very few tries to do so. In Europe, there is The Lisboa Council (2000), the Stockholm Council (2001), and the Barcelona Council (2002). They proposed a project of digital alphabetization for all the European Union (E-Europe project). The main idea is to have the citizens of all the Union with access to the Information Society, the new technologies and the possiblity to enter courses and experiment the college online formation, and the experience of having different courses taken.

The conclusion that these councils came to was that, if they want to make a more extended access to the Internet, the cost of its access should be much less cheaper. Actually, only the 10 per cent of the worldwide population can access to the internet. From that, the 98 per cent corresponds to the USA.

There was a critical problem that happened in Mexico, and was referred by juan Ramòn de la Fuente, director of the Autonomic national University of Mexico (ANUM): he said that, with the absence of a legal law that says what contents are really qualified to meet the standards of college online learning, for a superior education, and which are not, lots of degrees are expended, by a huge amount of organizations, that have no support at all. These are organizations that have no official support, and that De la Fuente claims as “educational fraud”. Even though there are examples of good formations, such as the Open University in great Britain, where college online courses are taken, the most of enterprises associated to e-learning only want an economic benefit, without having interest in offering good educational contents.

In Argentina, it exists a law (25.506) that came out the 14th november, 2001, that refers to digital signature.

This law is expected to make a very important growth in different enterprises. It is also thought that lots of universities will adopt this system, so as to make more contents available to their students.

In Italy, there is a law hat specifically promotes e-learning, in schools, colleges, and universities. In 2003, the Moratti-Stanca Law came out, and it made it available to every student to take college online courses, in the what they called ‘Telematic University’.with this, any teaching center has the title of virtual online official. This law also went deep in innovation matters, something that is not yet done in the US, Mexico and the European union.