New initiative will allow U. to offer classes anywhere

The program will link televisions and computers to allow courses to be taught outside a classroom. A Wharton professor lectures on the stock market to a video camera, his image transmitted to a screen watched by hundreds of students thousands of miles away. They reside in designated "sites," and peck away at their respective keyboards. Perhaps one student is puzzled by long-term financing. Not to fear -- he or she simply e-mails his question to the "home site," which houses the professor and a "content specialist," a futuristic teaching assistant who evaluates the question for interest value and universal appeal. If the question passes the specialist's inspection, it is flashed on the professor's computer screen -- alerting him or her to devote additional video time to the topic. Look out, Sally Struthers --EPenn is invading the long-distance learning market. A subcommittee of the University's Academic Planning and Budget Committee recently released its report on distributed learning -- formerly called distance learning -- highlighting critical issues involved in the program's implementation. Among them: how the University will define admission standards for students, identify sources of funding and preserve its reputation in the process. Distributed learning includes pre-college, master's, executive education and professional certification and recertification programs that use video teleconferencing technology, along with audio-conferencing and asynchronous learning -- where student and teacher need not interact at the same time or place. Some of the benefits cited in the subcommittee's report include greater flexibility for students and the ability to access an international market. After dissecting the topic for over five months, the subcommittee is ready to unleash a series of initiatives over the next several years, Interim Provost Michael Wachter said. Within days, Penn will announce a certificate program founded on distributed learning methods. Wachter declined to comment as to the specifics of the program. He did note, however, that Penn hopes to offer a video-teleconferencing version of Advanced Placement Calculus BC as early as the fall. Designed for high school seniors, the course will carry Penn credit and will be broadcast in high schools around the country. A pre-freshman anthropology course is also in the planning phase. Distributed learning masters' programs across the 12 schools will pop up within the next several years in accordance with each school's strategic plan under the overarching Agenda for Excellence, according to Wachter. In an effort to connect the program to University President Judith Rodin's five-year strategic vision for Penn, Wachter invoked goals seven and four of the Agenda -- which state, respectively, that the University "will creatively deploy new technologies" and will make "strategic investments" in new programs across the arts and sciences. Although Wachter declined to provide a cost estimate for the program, his committee's report stressed the need for an "internal venture capital fund" which will subsidize startup costs accrued by individual schools. Additionally, the University will collaborate with for-profit institutions and other universities in order to gain access to costly computing equipment and personnel. Wachter said Microsoft has already approached the University about the possibility of collaborating with Wharton in a business-certification program. Other for-profit candidates include Motorola and Caliber Learning Network. Potential university partners have not yet been determined, he said. Wachter insisted that the for-profit partners will not exercise control over course content and will simply provide the University with technical expertise and state-of-the-art sites. The Internal Revenue Service's "management contract restrictions," which restrict ventures between non-profit and for-profit corporations, will compel administrators to closely monitor the situation, he added. The regulations -- announced last year -- call into question a non-profit's tax-exempt status when collaborating with a for-profit corporation. The IRS is currently evaluating the University's newly restructured agreement to outsource facilities management to Dallas-based Trammell Crow Co. A ruling is expected as early as the fall. Distributed learning also raises legal and accreditation issues, stemming from how Penn decides to use its brand name. Again, Wachter advocated strict scrutiny in this regard, adding that all business and legal complications will be evaluated by the offices of the General Counsel and Executive Vice President. While undergraduates and doctoral students may relish the thought of distancing themselves from their professors, distributed learning is not scheduled to affect them any time soon, according to Wachter. "No matter how much we network the network with routers and switches and the like, there is no network like the human network," he said. But the essential value of the "human network" may not be applicable to masters' programs. For the past four years, the Nursing School has offered a 16-month midwifery program that utilizes two-way video teleconferencing. The program represents the University's first attempt at a comprehensive distributed learning master's degree. Participants earn a master's degree in Nursing and a Certificate in Nurse Midwifery. Additionally, the School of Engineering and Applied Science is busy converting its master's program in Telecommunications into a Web format, Wachter noted. Individual Web-based courses, however, are currently more prevalent than degree or certificate programs. Web courses enhance the "24-hour classroom we're building at Penn today," Wachter said. Students enrolled in the History of Western Music, for example, may discover the wonders of Mozart by listening to his compositions over the Web, supplemented with spoken commentary and diagrams. Undergraduate Music Chairperson Norman Smith, who teaches the course, added the Web component last spring. "It wasn't particularly easy," Smith said, noting that it took a significant amount of time just to get all of the materials together. But some faculty members expressed concern as to whether distributed learning techniques will complement their disciplines. Communications Professor Joseph Turow said his "Mass Media and Society" course, with more than 100 undergraduates enrolled every semester, would have to be "fundamentally changed" if he chose to incorporate a Web-based approach. Several faculty members declined to comment on the matter, saying they knew little to nothing about the issue. But administrators assured concerned parties that distributed learning programs will undergo an extensive approval process. After submitting to a thorough review by the Academic Planning and Budget Committee, a degree-granting distributed learning program must face the University's Board of Trustees for final approval. Additionally, the majority of Penn's distributed learning programs will be geared toward white collar workers entrenched in ever-changing fields like computer science or business that require recertification. And they'll be willing to pay for it, according to Wachter. "Higher education is an expanding market," he said, adding that Penn's early foray into the world of distributed learning will propel it to the top. While about 700 accredited universities are currently engaged in some form of distributed learning, most of the programs are adult continuing-education programs operated by state universities. Penn's competition may lie in the new distributed learning master's degree programs offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Duke, Cornell and Stanford universities. Yet Wachter insisted that the University's "entrepreneurial" spirit and recognized strengths in Engineering, Health and Business will contribute to its ultimate success. "[Distributed learning is] like an express train running down the tracks," he said. "Penn can reach the very best students."

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