United States

Partners situated in the United States

None.

United States in a nutshell

Summary

The United States (in full, the United States of America; in short, the US, the USA, or America) is a federal constitutional republic comprising 50 states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its 48 contiguous states and Washington DC, the capital district, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south.

Separate from the main US, the state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to its east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories, or insular areas, in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean.

At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) and with about 306 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and third largest by land area and by population. The United States is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries.[8] The U.S. economy is the largest national economy in the world, with an estimated 2008 gross domestic product (GDP) of US $14.3 trillion (23% of the world total based on nominal GDP and almost 21% at purchasing power parity).[4][9]

The nation was founded by thirteen colonies of Great Britain located along the Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776, they issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their independence from Great Britain and their formation of a cooperative union. The rebellious states defeated Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, the first successful colonial war of independence.[10] The Philadelphia Convention adopted the current United States Constitution on September 17, 1787; its ratification the following year made the states part of a single republic with a strong central government. The Bill of Rights, comprising ten constitutional amendments guaranteeing many fundamental civil rights and freedoms, was ratified in 1791.

In the 19th century, the United States acquired land from France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Hawaii. Disputes between the agrarian South and industrial North over states' rights and the expansion of the institution of slavery provoked the American Civil War of the 1860s. The North's victory prevented a permanent split of the country and led to the end of legal slavery in the United States. By the 1870s, the national economy was the world's largest.[11] The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a military power. In 1945, the United States emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and a founding member of NATO. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States as the sole superpower. The country accounts for approximately 50% of global military spending and is a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the world.[12]

The relevance of the US

Is the relevance of the US or of its states?

The population of the USA of around 306 million seems enormously large compared with the UK or England, let alone the other home nations. However, the federal structure of the US and the deregulated nature of its higher education means that it is reasonable to look also at the states level. In fact, even the largest state, California, has only 36 million people, and the next, Texas, just 23 million. Some 33 states have populations less than 6 million, bringing them into the zone of relevance to Scotland, Ireland, etc - and 13 states have populations in the range 1.0 to 3.0 million.

The EU should in theory feel comfortable in that the population of the EU is now estimated as 497 million, about 1.5 times that of the US. But where the analogy breaks down with the EU is that the common language and culture of the US means a velocity of propagation of ideas which cannot be replicated across the EU.

Currently we have given details of just four states: California, Colorado, Florida and Illinois. These are all largeish states containing several institutions of interest. If this level of analysis seems useful then, perhaps in a later phase, the Re.ViCa community will wish to extend the coverage.

The current list of states covered is at Category:States of the United States.

Why do ideas not transfer to Europe?

It has been a mystery to many analysts why the success of e-learning in universities in the USA does not transfer more readily to Europe. Is it the economy, the demographics, the population density? Or as some suspect, is the key the nature of the funding of universities?

Because of the mysteries, there is little point in bombarding readers with information on the excellence and sophistication of e-learning in US HE, even in quite small institutions. In any case, it is not feasible within the limited effort we have.

So instead we shall concentrate on a few aspects of most relevance.

Higher education

Universities in the United States

It is not knowable how many universities there are in the US. So much depends on what one means by a university - this isespecially so in the devolved and regionalised system of accreditation used in the US for universities. In any case, there seems little value in knowing the answer. Those who wish to try to find out could try looking at the alphabetical list of universities maintained at the University of Texas at Austin.

The USA has a complex structure of HE e-learning providers including organisations offering both face-to-face and e-learning (usually blended) provision via different subsidiaries. In terms of blended/e-learning provision, the two leading players in the USA are often agreed to be:

• The University of Maryland University College (UMUC), with over 110,000 online enrolments spread over 540 distinct courses online (chapter 12).
• University of Phoenix (UOP), with over 109,000 attending via the Internet through the University’s Online Campus (out of over 213,000 students as of May 2004)

For comparison, note that the UK Open University is reported as having 60,000 online students.

There is a major applications service provider, eCollege, whose entry into the UK and other non-US markets has now taken place, having been rumoured for many months.

Yet the major feature of the USA is now the breadth of deployment of distance e-learning services in HE, including the beginnings of activity overseas, from literally hundreds of universities and colleges. Many leading public universities, including the US partners in the WUN consortium, such as Penn State, are increasingly active. Several of these are featured in the Gazetteer.

There are two main categories: private for-profit and the rest (public or private non-profit).

At this stage of evolution in the UK there is little perceived relevance of the private for-profit institutions oriented to e-learning, such as the University of Phoenix - noting that some others, but not Phoenix have declined in recent years. The list of online courses at Phoenix is impressive. There is a useful wikipedia entry on Phoenix.

There are also many high-profile large universities (especially state-wide systems) which would be difficult for UK institutions to emulate, given their scale, endowment, etc. So it is likely that the main relevance to the UK - different, but not totally, from "threat to the UK" - will come from mid-range providers. Since there are several active HE networks - such as WUN - which cross the Atlantic, it is worthwhile for UK HEIs to look first at any US partners in that category.

Institutions which come to mind include:

1. MIT, of course
2. Carnegie Mellon, with a long tradition of insightful e-learning development
3. Penn State, active for years in distance learning and e-learning, and a WUNmember
4. Michigan State, with the MSU Global entrepreneurial arm - who as just one university without any US government involvement co-hosted a major conference in China on quality assurance in online learning.

There are many many more.

Country's HEIs in the information society

Information society strategy

Benchmarking e-learning

Within the sphere of influence of methodologies supported by the Higher Education Academy, there has been some interest in benchmarking in the US from several universities including in particular Penn State, a member of the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) to which several UK universities active in eMM are affiliated.

The UK members of WUN are:

• University of Bristol (ELTI - Pilot)
• University of Leeds (eMM - Phase 2)
• University of Sheffield (eMM - Phase 2)
• University of Southampton (eMM - Phase 2)
• University of York (not active in benchmarking e-learning)

The University of Manchester is no longer a member of WUN.

Outside the methodologies being supported by the Higher Education Academy, there is much activity in the US including from IQAT, increasing substantially in 2008.

References

None yet.

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