February 11, 1996

Academic Opportunity Beneath Your Fingers

CAREERS / By SABRA CHARTRAND

"correspondence course" once carried the dubious distinction of providing an education based on mail-order lesson packages, the kind offered by obscure institutes that ran tiny ads in the back of magazines shouting: Become a legal secretary in the privacy of your own home! Learn to write best-selling novels in your spare time! Teach yourself how to sell anything to anybody!

Presumably those courses appealed to people who could not afford time for traditional classes or who lived in remote areas far from colleges or vocational schools. Mail may have been their only alternative, but established institutions weren't interested in entering the world of long-distance, packaged education.

The Internet is changing that. Training and education has always been a primary strategy for career advancement, and the World Wide Web is becoming not just a supplement to traditional academic or vocational programs, but an alternative to them as well. It brings learning to people's fingertips, without regard for how far someone may be from a school or how many other people are interested in the same class.

Universities, state agencies and trade organizations now offer the digital equivalent of correspondence courses -- but backed up with professional staff, accredited course work and prestigious reputations. It may not be possible (yet?) to earn a college or vocational-technical degree on line, but anyone looking to bulk up their resume and competitiveness with extra training, new skills or an enhanced education can find references to programs as well as actual instruction on line.

Training traditionally meant experienced workers spending time teaching novice employees the tricks of a trade. That kind of on-the-job learning was eventually supplemented in many professions and industries with classroom and field instruction so that workers could learn in a more organized fashion. Soon, overhead projectors, movies, videos and computers became an integral part of those classes.

Now the Internet makes it possible for people to take advantage of those training tools without needing a classroom or the constant presence of an instructor or supervisor. People can learn on their own time, in their own place, at their own speed. They just have to find the right Web site, course or program. First, shed the déclassé characterization of a "correspondence course" for a more contemporary concept that encompasses all the permutations of multimedia. This brand of education is now called "distance learning."

Training found on the Net can generally be divided into two categories -- academic and vocational, albeit with a certain amount of overlapping. Within those arenas, the Web is a source for two kinds of programs. It can be used to research myriad organizations and institutions that offer training, classes, degrees or certificates on their premises, or it can serve as a school of its own, with on-line lectures, assignments and interaction with instructors.

This week we'll deal with academic programs available through the Net. Next week we'll look at how to use Web sites for vocational or technical training.

Any exploration could start with a key word search request for sites relevant to the occupation in which you're interested -- like nursing, writing, computer programming, etc. Unfortunately, that will probably also turn up hundreds of sites that have nothing to do with training or education.

It might be more efficient to start by looking at several sites that pool academic educational resources. They all provide links to each program mentioned.

Training & Development Related Web Sites offers a potpourri of distance-education organizations, on-line training opportunities and academic programs.

Distance Education Resources offers a place to start for anyone researching training conferences, courses, databases, newsgroups or journals.

Peterson's Education Center, the publisher of college guides, offers lists of two and four-year degree programs, searchable by college name or specific major. The search can also be geographic, alphabetical or even by religious affiliation. The site also offers information about graduate study, programs abroad, and summer courses.

Not all on-line resources are for people looking to acquire entirely new skills. Many appeal to those already employed or with years of experience who want to fine-tune their abilities. Peterson's, for example, lists some 200 universities and non-profit institutions that run two, four or seven-day training courses in marketing, sales, general and technology management for corporate executives, some of them on line.

The Distance Education Clearinghouse is a site put together by the Distance Learning Alliance, and offers a list of courses taught on the Internet, like a Computational Sciences course offered by the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Tennessee. The course description refers to "e-lectures," an "e-book" and "Class WWW Home Pages."

Distance Education Links offers dozens of links to programs throughout the country that specialize in using video conferencing, computers and e-mail to conduct classes. In all of these sites, you'll have to spend time winnowing out specific programs like nursing or accounting courses.

After looking through the general lists, you may want to focus on specific institutions. Many universities offer courses on line, some of which can be applied toward credits necessary for a degree. Some require students to be in the region because the on-line courses are only a supplement to class attendance on campus, while others accept students from across the Internet for a curriculum that is entirely on line.

The University of Washington in Seattle offers "English C281 on the World Wide Web," a class in intermediate expository writing. The Web site explains the required texts, the course objectives, instructions for turning in assignments through e-mail, and grading. It offers samples of student papers, a list of writer's resources, and directions for asking questions and communicating with the professor. The course's purpose is to help people who are competent with grammar, punctuation and style to become more lyrical writers.

The same information is available for another distance-learning class, at the University of Washington, "C Programming: Introduction and Intermediate," which teaches students to write computer programs using the C language. There are prerequisites -- proficiency in computer languages -- and students must commit to an honor system of completing the 10 homework assignments without help from others. A final exam must be taken under supervision, and the professor warns that anyone who has e-mailed fraudulent homework will surely fail the final exam.

The University of Wisconsin Extension offers anyone living in remote parts of the state the opportunity to work toward a B.A. in nursing. In fact, the program is open to anyone interested in medicine, even those who don't plan to complete the degree. The program was established for students who cannot reach one of the five campuses of the University of Wisconsin system that offer nursing courses. Instead, several core courses are offered to them through computers, two-way audio systems between instructors and students, and a two-way video conferencing system. The courses can be applied toward a portion of the 120 credits required for a four-year degree, though students will eventually have to go to a campus for most of those classes.

Not all academic learning available on the Web is sponsored by official institutions. Michael Heim has taught seminars and classes in virtual reality and metaphysics at the University of Southern California and has given lectures and held workshops on the impact of the Internet, electric language and something he calls the "existential foundations of computing" at institutions across the United States and abroad. Now he's offering Web seminars taken from his portfolio.

Students can sign up with Dr. Heim for an 8-week on-line seminar called "Art & Reality" that examines applications of traditional art criticism to interactive media. Other seminars available include "The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality" and "Cyberspace, Multimedia and Virtual Reality." Dr. Heim's site includes reading lists and links to other similar Web pages. While it might be hard to impress an employer with these credentials, or to find a place on a resume for courses like these, they'll still spark ideas about culture and technology for anyone interested in a career in multimedia.

CAREERS is published weekly, on Sundays. Click here for links to other columns in this series.

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Sabra Chartrand at sabra@nytimes.com welcomes your comments and suggestions. Due to the volume of her e-mail, she cannot answer all correspondence personally.

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Other Areas of Interest

Training & Development Related Web Sites - -- Sponsored by Targeted Communications Management, this site lists distance education programs and academic, vocational and other non-commercial training Web sites.

Distance Education Resources -- This site offers links to distance learning and adult education databanks and programs at universities and institutions.

Peterson's Education Center -- Maintained by Peterson's Guides, Inc., this site pools information about educational opportunities at private schools, camps, colleges and universities that have joined the Center. Users can request information, apply to or communicate with faculty members through searchable databases.

Distance Education Clearinghouse -- A database of academic courses maintained by the Distance Learning Alliance, a partnership of Indiana and Pennsylvania State universities and the University of Wisconsin.

Distance Education Links -- Put together by the Ottawa Distance Learning Group, this site provides an alphabetical listing of dozens of business, government and educational institutions involved in distance learning.

The University of Washington -- The site for the Distance Learning Program at the university's extension department. You can request a catalog of courses and look at a list of courses supported by this home page.

University of Wisconsin -- This site offers information on core courses in theoretical concepts of nursing practice and health assessment.

Seminars in Cyberspace -- Seminars authored by Dr. Michael Heim, the author of "The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality," and an instructor at the University of Southern California.

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