Future Development 

The interest in online education is high, and it seems to proliferate rapidly and globally. A 

Canadian analysis shows that the primary expansions strategies are more and diverse 

programs, international students, and new and nice markets such as corporate training. The 

CISAER interviewees foresaw a future with more web courses, additional online services, 

better quality of the courses, enhanced focus on teacher training, further collaborations with 

other institutions, and additional organizational consequences. 

Barriers 

There are a number of barriers that must be overcome before online education can become a 

large scale success. Among them are financial barriers, resistance to change, bandwidth 

limitations, access limitations, insufficient search facilities, copyright issues, and barriers to 

online assessment. 

The financial barriers are important. The analysis showed that few institutions had substantial 

income from student fees. At the same time, the cost of development and maintenance could 

be high. In addition, national regulations in some countries denies institutions the opportunity 

to charge tuition fees. 

The interviews testify that there are a number of barriers to effective use of online assessment. 

Among them are public and institutional regulations, traditions for physical attendance, 

technical limitations, student identification, and detection of plagiarized digital material. 

Strategic Recommendations 

In conclusion, the report provides eight recommendations for politicians, educational 

administrators, and online educators: 

1.  Promote national and international harmonization of degrees, certificates, credits, and 

grades to facilitate online mobility of students 

2.  Oppose national regulations that inhibits institutions from charging tuition fees 

3.  Focus on cost effective online education 

4.  Develop better systems for administration of online education 

5.  Support initiatives for training of online teachers, administrators, and instructional 

designers 

6.  Oppose regulations and attitudes that inhibits online assessment 

7.  Support further research on online pedagogy and didactics 

8.  Develop and implement strategies to reduce the workload of online teachers 

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