In his State of the Union address in 1997, President Clinton extolled the virtues of connecting public schools and libraries to the Internet. Yet, today's online learning revolution is taking place more at home rather than in school, concerning more about adult learners than school children.

Young entrepreneurs and mid-career professionals are heading to the Web in droves to get practical skills that will help them stay ahead of the game. That means big business for virtual vocational schools teaching topics ranging from practical nursing to, of course, computer programming. Even established universities are getting into "distance learning," albeit at an academically deliberate pace.

The Internet is fast emerging as one of a teacher's most important tools, with the World Wide Web emerging as the easiest and most popular way to access the Internet. Also, because it is cost-efficient and highly accessible, World Wide Web has provided higher education institutions an effective medium to distribute course materials over the Internet.

Unfortunately there is no single standard that describes how courses should be created and distributed over the Web. As educators, we need to concern ourselves with the quality of education we are providing. To ensure that, more research needs to be done and knowledge to be acquired about web-based education. The following is a selected annotated online sources for web-based education, an attempt to provide informative resources for educators and in however small way, amend the deficiency above mentioned. The sources are divided into three categories: theoretical framework, development tools, and online courses.

Theoretical Framework:

Black, J. (1997). Online Students Fare Better. [On-line]. Available: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,7147,00.html?st.ne.ni.rel
Featuring a study done by J. Schutte, this article asserts that students taking courses online can perform as well, if not better, than students in the traditional classrooms. It also refers to other educational studies that have discovered similar benefits to online student collaboration.

Bush, V. (1945). As We May Think. [On-line]. Available: http://www.isg.sfu.ca/~duchier/misc/vbush
In this piece, Bush discusses how society and technology must cope with the ever-increasing scientific advances in post-War America. Among other things, he predicted the invention of a curious device known as a Memex (or Memory Extender), a data storage device "in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility." His prediction lays the groundwork for the World Wide Web because it brings forth the importance of hypertext.

Carvin, A. EdWeb. [On-line]. Available:
http://edweb.cnidr.org
Hailed by Harvard Educational Review as "An intelligent, detailed, informed and practical guide, both to education related issues concerning the Internet, and to educational resources on the World Wide Web...," this site provides an invaluable collection of resources for those who are interested in web-based education.

McManus, T. F. (1997). Delivering Instruction on the World Wide Web. [On-line]. Available: http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~mcmanus/wbi.html
While applauding the boundless possibilities of Web based instruction, the author rightfully cautions educators, both teachers and designers, to use this tool properly. Some of the basic issues involved in Web based instruction, it's design, and its delivery are discussed in the article.

Schutte, J. G. (1996). Virtual Teaching in Higher Education: The New Intellectual Superhighway or Just Another Traffic Jam? [On-line]. Available:
http://www.csun.edu/sociology/virexp.htm
Conducted at California State University, Northridge, in Fall 1996, this experimental study finds that "Contrary to the proposed hypotheses, quantitative results demonstrated the virtual class scored an average of 20% higher than the traditional class on both examinations." This paper explains how the experiment is designed and conducted.

Development Tools:

Connections+. [On-line]. Available:
http://www.mcrel.org/connect/plus
This site consists of Internet resources--lesson plans, activities, curriculum resources--linked with corresponding subject-area content standards.

Downes, S. (1998). How to Build a (Dynamic) Web-Based Course. [On-line]. Available: http://www.assiniboinec.mb.ca/ua
This site features a presentation by Stephen Downes for the the University of Alberta Professional Development Series. In addition, visitors are asked to provide personal information concerning their knowledge of the Internet and web-based education, and expectations before they join a forum discussion.

Nicenet. [On-line]. Available:
http://www.nicenet.net/ica/ica_info.cfm
This site is a free web-based learning environment for classrooms, distance learning programs and collaborative academic projects. It is responsible for the release of Internet Classroom Assistant (ICA), a sophisticated communication tool that brings powerful World-Wide-Web based conferencing, personal messaging, document sharing, scheduling and link/resource sharing to a variety of learning environments. ICA is provided free of charge with no advertising. [Very nice, indeed!]

Online Course Templates. [On-line]. Available:
http://www.cet.sfsu.edu/styles.html
Provides 3 styles of web-based course templates each include 4 sections: course syllabi, course materials, course notes, and Internet resources. Maintained by the San Francisco State University, the site also contains a step-by-step direction for the use of the templates. A rather pragmatic site for faculty members who don't have many technical skills.

Teaching and Learning on the WWW.  [On-line]. Available:
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tl/
565 examples of how the web is being used as a medium for learning can be searched at this site. Maintained by the Maricopa Center for Learning & Instruction (MCLI), part of Maricopa Community Colleges, Arizona, this searchable collection includes sites that range from courses delivered entirely via the web to courses that offer specific activities related to a class assignment or courses that offer class support materials via the web.

Tools for Developing Interactive Academic Web Courses. [On-line]. Available: http://www.umanitoba.ca/ip/tools/courseware/index.html
Maintained by University of Manitoba, Canada, this site provides design models, analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of web-based instruction, an evaluation of different tools available on the market, and links to other resources.

WBT Information Center. [On-line]. Available:
http://www.filename.com/wbt/index.html
This is a serchable site that comprises discussion forums, survey about WBT and WBPSS, and links to WBT resources. An excellent site, WBT Information Center provides valuable resources such as articles, theory, tools, style guides, and upcoming events. The rich source of links for learning the latest about designing Web interfaces and organizing information for optimum learning effectiveness and user satisfaction makes this site highly recommendable for web-based educators.

WebEd: Web-based Education. [On-line]. Available:
http://www.osc.edu/webED/
The webED initiative was started by the Ohio Supercomputer Center to assist collaborative efforts by Ohio colleges and universities as they work to build and support web-based education activities. Sections include News, Forum, Library, and Links. The most valuable part is the annotated links to web-based courses, virtual campuses, courseware authoring tools, faculty resources, product reviews, and articles on web-based education issues.

World Wide Web Course Tools (WebCT). [On-line]. Available:
http://homebrew1.cs.ubc.ca/webct/
WebCT will always be free to download, install and create courses on. License fees only apply when the courses are made available to students. Thus if you don't like WebCT, or the course you produced with it, you've only invested your time, not your money.

Online Courses:

California Virtual University (1998). [On-line]. Available:
http://www.california.edu
Billing itself as "the gateway to California's opportunities for distance learning, this site connects students to hundreds of online courses offered by the Golden State's colleges and universities. Over 100 complete certificate and degree programs are offered. A tour section offers sample online courses and informative web site links to inform students of the technology behind and the issues associated with online education.

CyberEd @ UMass Dartmouth. [On-line]. Available:
http://www3.umassd.edu
Having been in operation since 1995, this is a means of delivering virtual courses through use of the World Wide Web (WWW) and email. Courses are structured around a teacher's weekly assignments. Students participate in class by sharing thoughts and ideas through message boards and other electronic means. With no set time when students must be at their computers, the nature of this system allows for greater flexibility, both for students and teachers. Credit and non-credit courses are available; however, it does not offer degree programs.

The Usenet University-Globewide Network Academy. [On-line]. Available: http://www.gnacademy.org
This is a network of numerous course-providing universities (including the British Open University) who channel courseware through UU-GNA as the central administrative core. Over 15,000 courses and programs from kindergarten to doctoral programs in our distance learning catalog. One can search and browse courses and programs by topic, sponsor, and education level. A News Center provides news updates as well as information about workshops or conferences related to the field. Scheduled online meetings with the GNA staff are available for students in the GNA forum where they exchange ideas or ask questions. Courses listed are sponsored by institutions from different countries, including the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada.