The advent of Internet-based distance learning makes if feasible for new
commercial entities to deliver courses to students on a for-profit basis.
Some examples include:
- Funded by Paul Allen, a cofounder of Microsoft, APEX
markets advanced placement courses to high schools.
- Founded as a for-profit company, the University of Phoenix offers courses
in 13 states including both undergraduate and Master's degree programs.
Their program is based heavily on local faculty teaching courses designed
by a small core of master faculty. Distance learning resources supplement
inadequate local facilities.
- Harcourt Inc,
one of the larger textbook publishers, is launching its own on-line university
based on distance learning technologies. It will open in 2000 offering
120 courses in four majors.
Others are positioning themselves to control people's access to information.
This move both enables these companies to collect fees for the information
that is critical for scholarship and to provide the companies with the content
needed to enter the on-line instruction business.
- Owned by Bill Gates, Corbis
has been acquiring the exclusive electronic distribution rights of the
images created by many professional photographers and the contents of
the premier museums and art collections worldwide. Corbis recently stated
that it owns 65 million images, only 2 million of which are currently
available online (NYTimes 3/23/00).
- The ownership of scientific journals is becoming increasingly centralized
into a few international publishers. Simultaneously, the subscription
costs are increasing much faster than what might be expected from inflation
alone.
- There is a rapid scramble to control the electronic rights for photographs
and images -- even when these are stock photos of objects that have been
in the public domain for decades. In the past, the sale of images of famous
art works was a small specialty market of very limited interest. With
the emergence of the web, many now see image royalty payments as a highly
profitable future market.
The demand for corporate retraining has lead to a rapidly-growing market
for professional training. For example,
- Accounting and consulting firm, Arthur Anderson
spends more on training that the budget of many large universities.
How this competition may influence higher
education
