Regional accreditation of Jones International University (JIU) - the first entirely virtual university accredited by the US regional accreditation agency - sparked heated discussions in academic circles. Concerns about changing roles of academia and faculty were countered with unbinding enthusiasm for the new teaching opportunities.

This presentation uses notes form the 5 years of active online teaching at Jones International University as a base to examine what is changing in teaching, faculty roles, student responsibilities and collegiate culture when we decide to deliver education through a network of computers.

KEYWORDS
online teaching
online learning
virtual university
online pedagogy

INTRODUCTION

It appears, based on archeological records, that people learned before we invented classroom. We have -- sometimes -- learned in them. I would hypothesize that we will somehow learn when the classrooms are no longer around. The question, of course is what we will learn.1

This statement by John McDaid names the central theme of my presentation. Based on the experience of five years of active teaching and administration at Jones International University (JIU) -- the first fully online, regionally accredited university in the United States -- I will attempt to outline changes to teaching and learning processes that happen when online environment replaces face to face classroom.

After a short introduction of JIU’s teaching model I will focus on the following four questions.<……