University Instructors' Perceptions of Factors in Distance Education Transactions

Distance education is growing exponentially. To better prepare faculty and students for the future of distance education, researchers need to better understand the various components that comprise a distance education course. There is a need to clarify academia's understanding of the types of transactions used by university distance education faculty to communicate with and gauge the learning of their students. Distance education proponents have had to surmount many obstacles in the past. There seemed to be a glut of information on distance education and the task of navigating through the many offerings can be daunting. Anecdotal resources for distance education comingled with purposeful empirical studies. Furthermore, the task of divining useful information for the practicing distance educator was needed as technologies advance at a rapid rate.