Glossary of Distance Education Terms

As distance education becomes more prominent on the university campus, more and more instructors and students are becoming involved in both the technical and educational aspects of distance education. It is important to understand distance education related terminology if the instruction and delivery is to be understood by all persons involved.

The Glossary

AACRAO: The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

Articulation: An agreement that guarantees transfer of credits from a two-year or four-year college to a four-year college in the same state. Students should always check in advance to see if their credits will transfer.

Asynchronous Learning: Any learning event where interaction is delayed over time. This allows learners to participate according to their schedule, and be geographically separate from the instructor. Could be in the form of a correspondence course or e-learning . Interaction can take use various technologies like threaded discussion.

Accreditation: Validation by a group of persons that an educational institution or department within a school has been investigated and found worthy of approval. In the United States, a school volunteers to be accredited and the accrediting is done by private agencies. There is no central agency and the government does not have authority over the process.

Advanced placement: Admission to a school at a higher level than one would normally enter, because of getting credit for prior learning experience or passing advanced-placement exams.

Bandwidth: The width of electric frequencies necessary to transmit communications signals quickly and clearly. The more information a signal contains--photographs, moving images, sound, text--the more bandwidth it uses. Text alone uses little bandwidth.

Computer Based Training (CBT): Training or instruction where a computer program provides motivation and feedback in place on a live instructor. CBT can be delivered via CD-ROM, LAN or Internet. Creation is done by teams of people including instructional designers, and often has high development costs.

Correspondence Course: A course completed from a distance using written correspondence for interaction and to submit assignments. Correspondence classes became popular in the 1890's.

credit: A unit used to record courses taken. Each credit typically represents the number of hours spent in class each week. Hence a 3-credit or 3-unit course would commonly be a class that met three hours each week for one semester or quarter.

Diploma mill: An unscrupulous business that sells "degrees" with cursory or no course work required. The diplomas, degrees, and other papers sold are easily recognized by legitimate academic institutions and employers as valueless and fraudulent. Diploma mills are often fly-by-night schemes operated from a post office box; they escape prosecution by vanishing and, perhaps, starting again under a new name.

Desktop Videoconferencing: Videoconferencing on a personal computer.

Dial-Up Teleconference: Using public telephone lines for communications links among various locations.

Distance Education: The formal process of distance learning. This term has traditionally implied the higher education level.

Distance Learning: Learning where the instructor and the students are in physically separate locations. Can be either synchronous or asynchronous . Can include correspondence, video or satellite broadcasts, or e-Learning . Usually implies the higher education level.

Fellowship: A study grant, usually awarded to a graduate student, and usually requiring no work other than usual academic assignments (as contrasted with an assistantship).

Financial aid: A catch-all term, including scholarships, loans, fellowships, assistantships, tuition reductions, etc. Many schools have a financial aid officer,

Liberal education: Commonly taken to be the opposite of a specialized education; one in which students are required to take courses in a wide range of fields, as well as courses in their major.

Licensed: Holding a permit to operate. This can range from a difficult-to-obtain state school license to a simple local business license.

Listserv: An e-mail program that allows multiple computer users to connect onto a single system, creating an online discussion.

Nontraditional: Something done in other than the usual or traditional way. In education, refers to learning and degrees completed by methods other than spending many hours in classrooms and lecture halls.

Proctor: A person who supervises the taking of an examination to be certain there is no cheating, and that other rules are followed. Many nontraditional schools permit unproctored examinations.

Rolling admissions: A year-round admissions procedure. Many schools only admit students once or twice a year. A school with rolling admissions considers each application at the time it is received. Many nontraditional schools, especially ones with nonresident programs, have rolling admissions.

Statement of purpose: A detailed description of the career the applicant intends to pursue after graduation. A statement of purpose is often requested as part of the admissions procedure at a university.

Synchronous: Communication in which interaction between participants is simultaneous.

Teleconferencing: Two way electronic communication between two or more groups in separate locations via audio, video, and/or computer systems.

Telecourse: A class that delivers content via televised lessons (sometimes referred to as modules). Students watch the lessons on cable television or on videotapes. Tapes are usually available to check out or view at the college offering the class.

Transcript: A certified copy of the student's academic record, showing courses taken, examinations passed, credits awarded, and grades or scores received.

Transfer student: A student who has earned credit in one school, and then transfers to another school.

Video conferencing: Video and audio transmission sent by satellite. With one-way video and two-way audio, learners see and hear the instructors; instructors can hear but not see the students. With two-way video conferencing, people in multiple locations see and hear each other simultaneously. At present, most teleconferencing has brief time lag between the sent transmission and reception.

Web Based Training (WBT): Training which is delivered over a network (LAN, WAN or Internet). Can be either Instructor-led or Computer Based . Very similar to e-Learning , but it implies that the learning is in the professional or corporate level.