BOOKMARKS Virtual Universities: an Overview As distance-education programs have flourished, they have given rise to a new class of institution -- "the virtual university," often consisting of disparate programs that pool their offerings. Do you know of a virtual university or distance education-consortium we missed? Send us e-mail at editor@chronicle.com, and mark the subject line "virtual university." Geography and state politics have shaped most of the new on-line institutions. Many state-university systems, for instance, have seized on the idea of creating virtual campuses as a way of combining the electronic resources of their various branches. The all-electronic institutions vary greatly in structure. Some are little more than World-Wide Web sites that direct students to courses offered by traditional institutions. Others are institutions in their own right, with administrators, accreditation, and the ability to grant degrees. Regional and national consortia include: The West: Western Governors University (members are Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming). * http://www.wgu.edu The South: Southern Regional Electronic Campus (created by the Southern Regional Education Board, whose members are Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia). * http://www.srec.sreb.org/ The Midwest: Common Market of Courses and Institutes (created by the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, which is composed of the University of Chicago and the institutions of the Big Ten athletics conference -- Indiana, Michigan State, Northwestern, Pennsylvania State, Purdue, and Ohio State Universities, and the Universities of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Iowa, Michigan at Ann Arbor, Minnesota-Twin Cities, and Wisconsin at Madison). * http://www.cic.uiuc.edu/CMCI/cmci_homepage.htm Community Colleges: The Community College Distance Learning Network (organized by Cuyahoga Community College, Dallas Community Colleges, Foothill/De Anza Colleges, Kern Community College District, Kirkwood Community College District, Miami-Dade Community College District, Rio Salado College, and Sinclair Community College). * http://ccdln.rio.maricopa.edu/ Statewide efforts include: California: California Virtual University (courses and programs from public and private colleges and universities). * http://www.california.edu/ Florida: Florida's Campus (courses and programs from public colleges and universities). * http://www.flcampus.org Indiana: Indiana College Network (offering courses from Ball State, Indiana, Indiana State, Purdue, and Vincennes Universities; the University of Southern Indiana; Ivy Tech State College; and the Independent Colleges of Indiana). * http://www.icn.org Iowa: University administrators in Iowa have proposed a virtual "fourth state university," which would coordinate technology resources and distance-education efforts at Iowa State University and the Universities of Iowa and Northern Iowa. Massachusetts: Distance Learning Honors Courses (a pilot project created by public universities and colleges in Massachusetts to offer four distance-learning honors courses this year for a limited number of students). * http://www.umass.edu/pubaffs/dislearn/fac_part.html Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Virtual University (a distance-learning alliance of West Chester, Millersville, and Shippensburg Universities of Pennsylvania). * http://business.ship.edu/vu/ Systemwide efforts include: Connecticut State University System: OnlineCSU (opens October 1). * http://www.csu.ctstateu.edu/onlinecsu/ State University of New York: SUNY Learning Network. * http://sln1.suny.edu/sln University of Texas System: The University of Texas TeleCampus. * http://www.uol.com/telecampus http://chronicle.com Section: Information Technology Page: A37