The presentation looks briefly at one specific distance education evaluation effort and one set of guidelines. The goal is not to produce a fully-developed picture of distance education evaluation issues and efforts but rather to sketch out some points that can be used to formulate ideas and foster discussion.

There are numerous concerns related to evaluating distance education. For discussion here we focus on four:

• Faculty express concern about the time necessary for creating Web-based courses and interest in assistance with their design and implementation.

• Concerns about student-to-student interaction deserve careful attention.

• Questions concerning control of curriculum design and faculty autonomy must be addressed.

• The development of courseware and the role of faculty as technology experts and mediators must be considered.

To get a sense of how these concerns play out specifically in one evaluation project and generally in guidelines and recommendations, explore some of the issues discussed in the Guides & Examples section.