Virtual University?: Educational Environments for the Future (Wenner-Gren International)

Higher education institutions around the world are experimenting with many different types of virtual learning environments. This book argues that information and communication technologies will have a major impact on teaching and learning and universities should have a strategy to meet this change. It posits that institutions and individuals will not be able to individually obtain the best advantages from these new technologies, that there is need for specialization and cooperation. Experiences with Internet learning indicate that students, as well as teachers, have to accept patterns quite different from the "traditional" teaching-learning pattern. Traditional university staff may resist these changes, but institutions which do not adjust to the new opportunities are likely to shrink or even disappear.