The CyberCampus of San Francisco-based Golden Gate University, for example, offers such courses as Financial Management and Business Writing. And at the University of California Extension Online , students in American Environmental History learn by logging on. Kit Reed, an adjunct professor at Wesleyan University, uses a text-based chat environment to teach a fiction workshop. And at Brandeis University, Professor David Jacobson employs the Net for a course on social relations in cyberspace. Undergrad courses are only the tip of the iceberg.
Many schools offer professional training in fields as disparate as health care and aviation.
Naturally, the quality of distance-learning courses can vary. The Distance Education and Training Council is a Washington, D.C.-based organization that tracks and accredits these programs.