The Development of Virtual Education: A Global Perspective

Abstract

The term "virtual education" is something that is heard with increasing frequency now as the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) becomes ever more present in the conduct of open and distance education. To examine the degree to which the "virtual institution" has really arrived, The Commonwealth of Learning, with funding from the British Department for International Development, commissioned an international group of experts to look at this phenomenon and provide a snapshot report. While it is clear that the application of ICTs to the practice of open and distance learning is growing rapidly, the study team determined that the concept of truly virtual education is still more rhetorical than real. The report provides a detailed look at the differences in this development around the world through a series of regionally-based papers and concludes with a number of suggestions for policy makers and education leaders regarding the development of models for virtual learning