To promote training and professional development in the Balkans region by providing distance learning.

UNESCO: UNITWIN

The distance bridged by connected learning is not just geographical, but can include the divide between practice and the academy.

FORBES: A New Kind of Distance Learning

The announcement from the FutureLearn project sees the first major challenge from the UK, headed by the Open University, which has pioneered distance learning.

BBC: UK universities in online launch to challenge US

Distance learning threatens one day to disrupt higher education by reducing the cost of college and by offering the convenience of a stay-at-home, do-it-on-your-own-time education.

NEWYORKER: Get Rich U.

According to an International Data Corp. study, the number of college students taking distance learning courses will triple to 2.2 million by 2002, or 15 percent of all higher education students.

CNN: fyi.com - Study: Public higher education embracing virtual classrooms

International Data Corp. also predicts that the proportion of four-year colleges offering a distance learning program will grow from 62 percent to 84 percent by 2002.

CNN: fyi.com - Study: Public higher education embracing virtual classrooms

The University of Phoenix views its admissions approach as being inclusive, arguing that bricks-and-mortar universities exert a form of elitism by using grades and standardised testing as a way of restricting class size, whereas the distance-learning university can offer places to a wider student body whose priority is simply to move ahead.

ECONOMIST: Should an MBA be open to anyone?