The Daily Links newsletter produced by elearningpost.com is a resource I find very valuable. Today's links include a reference to a whitepaper produced by the The Pew Learning and Technology Program.

Innovations in Online Learning: Moving Beyond No Significant Difference, is the result of a symposium held "on December 8 and 9, 2000, in Phoenix, Arizona, [that] gathered a group of faculty and administrators--those who were already 'moving the ATMs outside the bank,' so to speak--to consider the question of how to move online learning beyond being 'as good as' traditional education."

Prior to meeting for the symposium in Phoenix, we are told, "participants [were asked] to think about how information technology can be used specifically to address the major challenges of higher education: improving quality, increasing access, and reducing costs."

The paper also contains a series of case studies of innovations in online learning.

The "no significant difference" of the title refers to the research that indicates that there isn't any "significant difference" when it comes to knowledge transfer in online courses as compared with that of "traditional" courses.

The paper closes with suggestions for reducing the costs associated with online education and prescriptions for "sustaining innovation" when developing and delivering online education.