Wednesday, April 12, 2000

Virtual High-School Programs Begin Looking for Students Overseas By SARAH CARR Following the lead of colleges and universities, two virtual high-school programs have stepped up efforts to market and sell their distance-education courses internationally. Administrators at the programs say they hope eventually to replicate their entire U.S. operations in other countries. Class.com, a for-profit company created by the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, has struck a deal to advertise its courses on Edunexo.com, a portal site that operates in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Spain. And Stanford University's Program for Gifted Youth is working with another portal, called NextEd, to offer courses in Australia and various Asian countries. Both Class.com and the Stanford program have offered their courses to international students in the past. Although the deals are limited in scope, John A. Blair, the president of Class.com, says that ultimately he would like Class.com not only to advertise abroad, but also to help establish entire virtual high schools in other countries. "We will do it tomorrow if we can find a partner," he says. "We have the technologies and the capabilities in place today." Last fall, Class.com negotiated agreements to provide online courses to new, statewide virtual high schools in Kentucky and Kansas, and Mr. Blair says he hopes to follow those models in foreign countries. For now, though, Class.com is simply trying to bolster its presence in Latin American countries by advertising on the Edunexo site, he says. Latin American high-school students who sign up for Class.com courses will take them in English and pay the regular tuition, says Katherine Endacott, the vice-president of business development at Class.com. Eventually, though, the course content will be modified some to "account for cultural differences," adds Mr. Blair. Raymond Ravalgia, the deputy director of the Stanford program, says NextEd will play more than a marketing function: The portal will also provide the network infrastructure necessary to offer the program's courses in foreign countries. In addition, NextEd officials in Australia and Asia will work directly with schools and colleges in those countries, called "host institutions," to provide technical support and tutorial services for students there taking the Stanford courses. "We are just offering the software and course content," he says. "There are other institutions in these countries that have instructional expertise when it comes to teaching gifted students, but may have limited distance-education expertise and may not have the resources to develop software and courses." Through the Stanford program, which began in 1992, grade-school, middle-school, and high-school students can take a range of advanced courses, including some through which they can earn college credit at Stanford. International students taking the courses will -- in many cases -- be able to receive credit from high schools or colleges in their home countries, says Mr. Ravalgia. Class.com and the Stanford program are using similar financial arrangements in their deals with portals. Class.com will pay Edunexo.com a commission each time a student enrolls in a Class.com course after passing through the portal site. NextEd will share revenues with the Stanford program, and also with the host institutions in Asia and Australia. Gary Meller, the executive vice-president at NextEd, says that while the company is now, in some cases, playing a marketing function, eventually he anticipates that it will devote more time to converting course content onto foreign servers and providing student-support services to international students taking American courses, including round-the-clock technical support. "I think services may be as important to Asian students in some ways as brand names," Mr. Meller says. Background articles from The Chronicle: As Distance-Learning Boom Spreads, Colleges Help Set Up Virtual High Schools (10/22/1999) U. of Nebraska's Class.com Hooks Up With a Kentucky School (10/22/1999) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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