Distance education in library and information science education is a major activity in the 1990's, and as new developments in technology expand the possibilities for providing quality pro-grams, it is likely to become even more widely used in the future. As a concept, distance education is not new to the field. It is merely the latest effort to remove the barriers of time and geography for those qualified to pursue their educational goals, from initial career preparation to continuing profes-sional development activities.

In humanity's early days of hunting and gathering, education was something passed from parent to child involving basic survival skills. When humans began to settle in one area and culti-vate, communities developed, and with the birth of communities came the growth of specialized knowledge and the institutions that supported the passage of this knowledge from one generation to the next. These groups began to communicate with like institutions in other communities and even-tually, through this shared learning, a civilization emerged.

Thus, education stands as an important factor in establishing and maintaining civilization. As a civilization's boundaries grew, so did its need for a common foundation, but expanded physical bor-ders made providing this common education increasingly difficult. By sending emissaries through-out their domains, Chinese emperors used the earliest method of distance education to teach the leaders how to govern the provinces.

For centuries distance education consisted of a traveling scholars sent from the center of learn-ing to surrounding areas -- a practice still visible in US college and university "extension courses" or "regional studies." Unfortunately, such high maintenance systems use human resources ineffec-tively, as the educator reaches a highly limited number of students. Printing and the evolution of courier and mail services revolutionized the extension system somewhat allowing the educator to maintain a central location while corresponding with students -- again, a valuable practice still in use in the US. Although applicable to some areas of education, correspondence study method is restric-tive because it allows the student little direct interaction with the teacher and little if any planned interaction with other students. What was needed was a centralized, cost-effective method for delivering instruction to students at many location.

By linking an educator in one location with students located virtually anywhere in the world, distance education makes it possible for corporations and educational institutions to educate em-ployees and students in a cost-effective manner without interrupting normal work schedules or lifestyles.

2. LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES

As early as 1888 correspondence study was championed for courses in library service. Cor-respondence courses, according to reports by Charles Williamson in the early 1920's, were adopted not "as a substitute for anything else, but merely as a necessary and logical supplement to other methods" (1)

Other extension efforts provided alternative access to library training around the turn of the century. In 1896 the New York State Library School offered a six-week summer session that was separate from the normal programming of the school. Subsequent variations included weekend sessions, intensive courses, institutes, evening classes, and the allowance of part-time enrollment -- noteworthy concessions, according to Dan Barron, "because they demonstrate that LIS educators have realized the futility of full time residency among many of those that have been attracted to the profession" (2).

Telecommunications delivery of began with radio in the 1920's. Library and information science education began its first distance education efforts with telephone technology in the 1960's and then began using television for delivery in the 1970's. With the last decade have come new developments in technology expanding the possibilities for providing quality programs. Live trans-mission through satellite, distribution of videocassettes, and cable television are just three of the technologies now in use in library and information science distance education. Compressed video is currently being used in programs in Alabama and Oklahoma. As more communications companies enter the marketplace of interactive communication, expansion of available learning opportunities will continue to grow.

3. DISTANCE EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

The University of South Carolina, a leader in helping build the technological bridge to educa-tion, got an early start in televised delivery of courses under the administration of President Tom Jones in the late 1960's. As an educator, Dr. Jones was interested in making instruction more widely available to citizens of the state; as an engineer, he was intrigued with the potential of tele-vised instruction to achieve this goal. When the South Carolina Educational Television Network began closed-circuit transmission of educational programming into the public elementary, middle, and high schools, Dr. Jones realized the system was not being utilized after normal school hours. For adults with full-time jobs, college-level courses televised after 5:00 p.m. were ideal. By 1969, the USC College of Engineering was delivering live, televised classes statewide. The College of Business Administration was soon to follow, with various efforts also being realized within the Colleges of Education and Humanities.

In 1978 the USC Office Distance Education was established within USC's division of Uni-versity Campuses and Continuing Education. Strongly advocating access to education for all adults and encouraging the use of new delivery systems to overcome distance, geography, and time factors that are barriers for many, the office and its services flourished then and now.

In place at the office of Distance Education is a strong student services area that assists stu-dents with registration, delivery of assignments, and questions about courses. Additionally, Distan-ce Education offers a copyright service for professors, pursuing permission to copy journal articles and producing readings packets for specific courses. These packets, as well as the texts and other materials, are made available to students who can purchase them by phone using a credit card. The materials are then shipped to the students' homes. The office also supplies students with a toll-free number they can use for contacting their professors in order to ask specific questions and a Study Companion service that enables them to contact classmates for discussions about class projects or general questions. Thus, the Office of Distance Education is able to provide a full range of service in a convenient, time- saving manner to students learning at a distance.

An important mission of USC's Office of Distance Education is faculty development provided to the various colleges at USC. Instructional developers work with faculty members to produce courses using the ITFS system which allows for one- way video, two-way audio interaction between the professor and the students. Faculty are assisted in the design and production of courses using videocassette tapes which students can playback for learning at the time most convenient to their schedules. Some courses employ a combination of these methods with live, interactive sessions followed by videocassette viewing and several on-campus sessions in which faculty and students meet at the main campus in Columbia. The instructional developer works with the faculty member to assure that the best method for delivery is chosen. For instance, there are some courses for which videocassette delivery is a vast improvement over live-televised or in-class lecture methods. Videocassette allows a student to rewind the tape and watch the instructor go through a procedure several times to clarify understanding.

4. USC'S COLLEGE OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE

The USC College of Library and Information Science (CLIS) began working with the Office of Distance Education in 1982 to adopt live televised delivery through the statewide system of ITFS (Instructional Television Fixed Service). The same year, a joint venture between USC and South Carolina Educational Television Network produced the highly successful broadcast quality course Jump Over the Moon, researched and co-authored by Dr. Pam Barron. Since then hundreds of CLIS students have enrolled in Jump, and SCETV has marketed the series to eighty institutions outside the state.

By 1986, the CLIS had a wide-ranging distance education program that had become an integral part of its mission to the state. What seemed to be lacking, however, was a policy on how these efforts would be carried out. A Distance Education Task Force was appointed early in 1987 and its report reaffirmed the CLIS's commitment to distance education and put into place a policy that involved all of the faculty in distance education.

Implicit in the development of the policy were the following:

In the early 1990's the success CLIS experienced in televised and videocassette delivery began to be noticed by officials in neighboring states. Since their states lacked ALA accredited library and information science programs, leaders in the profession in West Virginia and Georgia focused on CLIS as an answer to their education concerns. CLIS received invitations to develop and implement a master's program in library and information science for residents of the respective states. Encou-raged by advancements in technology, and in keeping with the CLIS's mission of "supporting the development and improvement of library and information services to the people of South Carolina and the southeastern region," the faculty began to consider using satellite transmission to expand its distance education program.

While the Office of Distance Education explored registration, tuition, student services, course development, and materials issues, USC's Instructional Services Center (ISC) searched for the most cost-effective avenue of delivery. Meanwhile, CLIS faculty and administrators worked with offi-cials in West Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina to draw up and present the proposal for the program to each state's appropriate legislative bodies. The CLIS arranged meetings with library professionals in each state and eventually held public meetings to introduce the proposed program to potential students. Working as a team, CLIS, the Office of Distance Education, and the Instructional Services Center began the live, satellite delivery of Foundations of Information Sources and Ser-vices on August 25, 1992. This course was the first of those being offered in a three year program to deliver the complete Master of Library and Information Science degree through a combination of distance education technologies, including satellite transmission, videocassettes, on-site sessions, electronic mail, and FAX.

The satellite program, like the on-campus program, consists of six core courses required of all students and six elective courses that students choose with their advisers. The first year of the satel-lite program, students enrolled in four core courses - one given each semester (fall, spring, summer I and II). In the second year, students will complete the remaining core courses and begin taking elective courses, all six of which they will have completed by the end of the third year. Thus, in the second and third years, students may be taking as many as two courses per semester.

Approximately two-thirds of the required contact hours for each televised course in the MLIS program consists of either live-interactive or a combination of live and videotaped instruction. To complete the required number of hours, students gather at a central location in the state a specified number of times to meet with the professor and their peers to participate in planned, interactive activities. Such activities include group discussions, demonstrations, and evaluation.

Assessment of the MLIS program includes student course evaluations, retention studies, and comparisons of grade ranges among the different groups in each course. Data are being gathered for a comprehensive evaluation of the cohort of students who entered the MLIS program in West Vir-ginia, Georgia, and South Carolina in the Fall of 1992. This study will include full-time on-campus students, part-time on-campus students, and distant learners in all three states.

Now in its second year, there are 140 students enrolled in the USC Master of Library and Information Science program in West Virginia and Georgia. Meanwhile the live-televised delivery of CLIS courses within the state of South Carolina continues to grow and attract students, and faculty members are seeking to make additional courses available through distance education. Income generated by the CLIS's expansion to West Virginia and Georgia has allowed CLIS to increase the number of courses available to distant learners in South Carolina, making this the first time South Carolinians have been offered the entire degree program in a specific three year time period.

Requests for similar access to programming through CLIS verifies the success of the South Carolina, Georgia, and West Virginia distance education endeavor. In 1994 a live-interactive pro-gram will begin with the state of Maine.

5. DISTANCE EDUCATION IN OTHER LIS PROGRAMS

Several accredited LIS programs offer a variety of approaches to distance education. Briefly, these include:

• ARIZONA is working with WICHE to offer its program through Mind Extension University and cable television to students in the WICHE states.

• HAWAII offers its programming by closed-circuit interactive system on all the islands of Hawaii and Hong Kong.

• UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, GREENSBORO, has begun offering its program via a closed-circuit system to five sites in the western part of Virginia.

• INDIANA has for many years offered some of its courses instate over a closed-circuit interactive system.

• OKLAHOMA has primarily sent its courses via compressed video to the Tulsa, OK, area.

• OKLAHOMA and ALABAMA have been involved in an experiment linking three sites in each state over closed-circuit interactive video. This has enabled a series of colloquia with participants from both schools.

6. LISDEC

While discussing distance education in library and information science in the United States in terms of specific institutions, the question naturally arises: How could these schools work together in ways mutually beneficial ways?

Cooperative efforts in the United States presently center on the Library and Information Scien-ce Distance Education Consortium (LISDEC), formed in 1990 by programs of library and informa-tion science education, state library agencies, state departments of education, and professional LIS associations. Several major benefits are to be derived from this venture. The first is the obvious -- providing access to graduate LIS degree programs to people who otherwise would not have this opportunity. Equally important, however, is a sharing of resources from one school to another. LIS programs are traditionally small. If students in one school have access to a specialization from another school, enhancement occurs. Students may take advantage of courses needed in their program of study which are not offered in their home schools but are available through technology from another institution. It is this expanded curriculum that is particularly appealing to both students and schools.

While LISDEC is not a degree-granting consortium, it functions as a vehicle for the sharing of resources and access to specialized subject areas. Each student is affiliated with a school of LIS and is subject to the admission criteria, rules, and regulations of that institution. Inherent in degree activities is the need for the individual school to maintain complete autonomy over its program in dealing with the following questions:

• What courses provided by other schools are appropriate to be accepted in a student's program?

• How much of a student's program can be accepted from another school or schools?

• How will individual schools use the courses, i.e., will they let the student enroll in the course as offered by another institution or will the school use the course as its own with some interaction with a local instructor?

Technology opens the window to a world of educational possibilities, and participation in LISDEC -- whether as a producer or a user of courses and workshops -- will give each school the opportunity to control its own use of the medium at whatever level serves the best interests of its constituencies and programs. The greater the participation, the easier it is to turn challenges into promises technology keeps. LIS educators and those in the profession have the opportunity to define what the cutting edge of technology will become in the 21st century.
 
 

REFERENCES

Barron, D., "Distance Education in United States Library and Information Science Education," Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, edited by Allen Kent. Vol. 52, Supplement 15, New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc., 1993.

White, C. A Historical Introduction to Library Education: Problems and Progress to 1951. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1976. p. 177.