Distance education

There are many private and public, non-profit and for-profit institutions offering courses and degree programs through distance education. Levels of accreditation vary; some institutions offering distance education in the United States have received little outside oversight, and some may be fraudulent diploma mills. In many other jurisdictions, an institution may not use the term "University" without accreditation and authorisation, normally by the national government. Online education is rapidly increasing among mainstream universities in the United States, where online doctoral programs have even developed at prestigious research institutions.

Types of distance education courses

Correspondence conducted through regular mail
Internet conducted either synchronously or asynchronously
Telecourse/Broadcast, in which content is delivered via radio or television
CD-ROM, in which the student interacts with computer content stored on a CD-ROM
PocketPC/Mobile Learning where the student accesses course content stored on a mobile device or through a wireless server
Integrated distance learning, the integration of live, in-group instruction or interaction with a distance learning curriculum
Distance Education has traversed four to five 'generations' of technology in its history.[15] These are print, audio/video broadcasting, audio/video teleconferencing, computer aided instruction, e-learning/ online-learning, computer broadcasting/webcasting etc. Yet the radio remains a very viable form, especially in the developing nations, because of its reach. In India the FM Channel is very popular and is being used by universities, to broadcast educational programs of variety on areas such as teacher education, rural development, programs in agriculture for farmers, science education, creative writing, mass communication, in addition to traditional courses in liberal arts, science and business administration. The increasing popularity of mp3 players, PDAs and Smart Phone has provided an additional medium for the distribution of distance education content, and some professors now allow students to listen or even watch video of a course as a Podcast [16]. Some colleges have been working with the U.S. military to distribute entire course content on a PDA to deployed personnel.