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Online Evolution Timeline
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WRITTEN ERA - 1728
1728 – Caleb Phillips begins advertising private (mail) correspondence courses in the Boston Gazette newspaper. Informal “correspondence educations” can be found thereafter, with varying degrees of quality and consistency (Ferrer, 2019). -
1775
1775 – Establishment of American Postal System (Ferrer, 2019). -
1858
1858 – The University of London becomes the first university in the world to offer full degrees through distance learning, with its “External Programme” (Ferrer, 2019). -
1873
1873 – The first formal correspondence schools in the United States begin. Their collective organization is called “The Society to Encourage Studies at Home,” founded by Ana Eliot Tickner in Boston, Massachusetts (Ferrer, 2019). -
1892
1892 – The University of Chicago is the first traditional American educational institution (college or K–12) to offer correspondence courses. The term “distance education” is first used in by the University of Wisconsin–Madison in a pamphlet (Ferrer, 2019). -
1906
1906 – The Calvert School of Baltimore (Maryland) is the first primary school in the US to offer correspondence courses. The University of Wisconsin–Madison sends course materials and lectures on phonograph records to distance learners, embracing new technology as a means of distance education and setting the stage for online learning (Ferrer, 2019). -
RADIO ERA - 1922
1922 – Pennsylvania State University is the first college or university to broadcast courses over the radio, increasing the speed and efficiency of contact between distance learners and course content (Ferrer, 2019). -
1925
1925 – The University of Iowa begins offering course credit for five different radio correspondence courses (Ferrer, 2019). -
1926
1926 – The National Home Study Council forms. They would change their name to the Distance Education and Training Council in 1942, and the Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC) in 2015 (Ferrer, 2019). -
1934
1934 – The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is formed. Under the influence of the Association of College and University Broadcasting, they help to keep frequencies open for collegiate broadcasting (Ferrer, 2019). -
1941
1941 – Allegedly, the first fully automated electro-mechanical programmable digital computer is created — the Z3 — by German Konrad Zuse (Ferrer, 2019). -
1950
1950 – WOI-TV of Iowa State University goes on the air with the first non-experimental, educationally owned television station (Ferrer, 2019). -
1953
1953 – The University of Houston offers the first televised college credit classes (Miller, 2014). -
1960
1960 – The University of Ilinois creates Intranet systems for students to access course materials and recorded lectures (Ferrer, 2019). -
1962
1962 – J.C.R. Licklider of MIT envisions a “galactic network” concept where all computers can access data and programs from any other site, effectively describing what came to be known as the internet (Ferrer, 2019). -
1965
1965 – The first statewide, telephone-based education program is offered by the University of Wisconsin (Dumbauld, 2014). -
1966
1966 – ARPA sponsors the launch of ARPANET research project under the supervision of Robert Taylor. Its aim is to bridge packet-switching technology and computer networks (Ferrer, 2019). -
TELEVISION ERA - 1968
1968 – Stanford University founds the Stanford Instructional Television Network, offering instruction for part-time engineering students (Dumbauld, 2014). -
1969
1969 – The internet is founded, as the US Department of Defense commissions ARPANet (Miller, 2014). -
1971
1971 – Social critic Ivan Illich writes “Deschooling Society,” which describes computer-based education (Dumbauld, 2014). -
ONLINE ERA - 1975
1975 – Bill Gates and Paul Allen found the Microsoft Corporation (Ferrer, 2019). -
1976
1976 –Coastline Community College becomes the first “virtual college,” broadcasting telecourses with no physical campus. Originally started as a distance learning college, Coastline now also offers on-campus classes (Miller, 2014). -
1977
1977 – Lawrence Landweber establishes the Computer Science Network (CSNET) with the intention of connecting all US universities and industrial computer research groups (Ferrer, 2019). -
1981
1981 – The Osborne 1 is the first commercially successful portable computer (Ferrer, 2019). -
1982
1982 – The Computer Assisted Learning Center (CALC) was founded in 1982 in Rindge, New Hampshire, as a small, offline computer-based, adult learning center (Miller, 2014). -
1983
1983 – Modern internet is born when ARPANET transitions to TCP/IP protocols, leaving behind the former (weaker, less flexible) protocols of the Network Control Programs (NCP) (Ferrer, 2019). -
1984
1984 – The first email is sent from the US to Germany on August 3. It says, “Willkommen CSNET.” The Electronic University Network is created to promote access to online courses (Ferrer, 2019). -
1985
1985 – The Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences, at Nova Southeastern University, pioneers accredited graduate degrees through online courses, awarding their first doctorate (Miller, 2014). -
1986
1986 – The Electronic University Network offers its first course for use with DOS and Commodore 64 computers (Ferrer, 2019). -
1989
1989 -- The University of Phoenix, a private for-profit school, launches its online degree program (Ferrer, 2019). -
1990
1990 – Linus Torvalds creates Linux, which would become a leading mode of Open Source software, a necessary aspect of many modern online learning platforms (Ferrer, 2019). -
1992
1992 – the Computer Assisted Personalized Approach (CAPA) system was developed at Michigan State University and was first used in a small (92 student) physics class in the Fall of 1992 (Miller, 2014). -
1994
1994 – The first completely online curriculum is introduced by CalCampus (Dumbauld, 2014). -
MODERN ERA - 1995
1995 – Western Governors University is founded by 19 US governors to help Western states maximize educational resources through distance learning (Dumbauld, 2014). -
1996
1996 – Glenn Jones, Chairman, and Bernard Luskin, founding Chancellor, launch Jones International University which becomes the first accredited fully online web based university (Miller, 2014). -
1997
1997 – California Virtual University (CVU), a consortium of California colleges offering more than 1,000 online courses, is launched (Dumbauld, 2014). -
1998
1998 – The Google search engine is developed (Ferrer, 2019). -
1999
1999 – The world is introduced to a host of new educational tools, including Blackboard and eCollege (Dumbauld, 2014). -
2000
2000 – CourseNotes.com launches with dozens of classes at the University of Texas at Austin. The services provides comprehensive professor wen sites, including virtually all features offered by Blackboard and is later renamed ClassMap (Miller, 2014). -
2001
2001 – Computer prodigy Aaron Swartz builds Creative Commons under the supervision of law professor Lawrence Lessig. Swarz was fifteen at the time. Jimmy Wales launches Wikipedia (Ferrer, 2019). -
2002
2002 – MIT offers free educational resources through the OpenCourseWare Project (Ferrer, 2019). -
2003
2003 – 81% of colleges have at least one online class (Dumbauld, 2014). -
2004
2004 – Mark Zuckerberg and his small team of fellow Harvard Students launch Facebook, originally intended as a collegiate social chat site (Ferrer, 2019). -
2005
2005 – YouTube, a video sharing website, is created (Miller, 2014). -
2006
2006 – iTunes U launches. Salman Khan founds Khan Academy (Ferrer, 2019). -
2007
2007 – First ever MOOC, Advanced Learning Interactive Systems Online (ALISON), is created (Dumbauld, 2014). -
2009
2009 – As we approached the end of the first decade of the new century, the impact of online learning on education could no longer be denied. The number of students taking online courses jumped a whopping 187%, and there were about 5.5 million students worldwide who were taking at least one class online (source). Moreover, traditional universities began expanding not only the number of online courses but the number of entire degree programs available online (Tom, 2017). -
2010
2010 – 83% of CEOs and small business owners in the US consider online degrees to be as credible as traditional degrees (Dumbauld, 2014). -
2011
2011 – The Department of Education issues new regulations which require online colleges to satisfy all state–level educational requirements. This mandate places a huge regulatory burden on online colleges. Additionally, the same regulatory measures mandate a strict rubric using credit hours to measure learning, instead of competencies or other measures (Ferrer, 2019). -
2012
2012 – Udacity launches Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on behalf of Harvard and MIT. President Barack Obama announces $500 million in grants to community colleges, the bulk of which supports the development of online learning resources and programs (Ferrer, 2019). -
2013
2013 -- University of Florida–Online launches, becoming the first online-only public university (Ferrer, 2019). 77% of academic leaders rate the learning outcomes in online education as the same or superior to those as in face-to-face instruction, up from 57% in 2003 (Dumbauld, 2014). -
2014
2014 – So, what is the future of online learning? Predictions that online learning would completely replace traditional programs have proven unfounded. However, there is little doubt about predictions that the number of students expected to have at least one online course in their class schedule will quadruple in the coming decade (Tom, 2017). 94% of public colleges and universities offer online programs (Dumbauld, 2014). -
2018
2018 – 98% of public universities and colleges offer some form of online program (Ferrer, 2019). -
2019
2019 – The University of Pennsylvania becomes the first Ivy League university to offer a totally online bachelor’s degree program (Ferrer, 2019). -
TODAY - 2020
TODAY 2020 – Going Further — ”The Future of Online Learning: With the advent of online learning, more people than ever before are able to connect, learn, and grow on their own terms, without many of the obstacles that are associated with traditional, on-campus education (Ferrer, 2019). -
2020 - FUTURE
FUTURE – While online colleges may never totally replace the traditional experience, it is undeniable that online education has had a major impact not only on how we pursue formal education, but on how we teach, learn, and perceive knowledge” (Ferrer, 2019).
