United States

Partners situated in the United States

None.

Also at present there are no members of the International Advisory Committee based in the US.

United States in a nutshell

(sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States)

Overview

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 capital of the US is Washington DC and the largest city is New York.

The United States is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries.

The US 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).

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.

Government

The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is a constitutional republic, "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law." It is fundamentally structured as a representative democracy, though US citizens residing in the territories are excluded from voting for federal officials. The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the US Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document. In the American federalist system, citizens are usually subject to three levels of government, federal, state, and local; the local government's duties are commonly split between county and municipal governments. In almost all cases, executive and legislative officials are elected by a plurality vote of citizens by district. There is no proportional representation at the federal level, and it is very rare at lower levels. Federal and state judicial and cabinet officials are typically nominated by the executive branch and approved by the legislature, although some state judges and officials are elected by popular vote.

The States

The United States is a federal union of 50 states. The original thirteen states were the successors of the thirteen colonies that rebelled against British rule. Most of the rest have been carved from territory obtained through war or purchase by the US government. One set of exceptions comprises Vermont, Texas, and Hawaii: each was an independent republic before joining the United States. Another set of exceptions comprises those states created out of the territory of the original thirteen. Early in the country's history, three states were created in this manner: Kentucky from Virginia; Tennessee from North Carolina; and Maine from Massachusetts. During the American Civil War, West Virginia broke away from Virginia. The most recent state — Hawaii — achieved statehood in 1959. The states do not have the right to secede from the union.

For more details and a map see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state.

The states compose the vast bulk of the US land mass; the two other areas considered integral parts of the country are the District of Columbia, the federal district where the capital, Washington, is located; and Palmyra Atoll, an uninhabited but incorporated territory in the Pacific Ocean.

The United States also possesses five major overseas territories: Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands in the Caribbean; and American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific. Those born in the territories (except for American Samoa) possess US citizenship. These territories (or any having significant e-learning activity) are considered separately - currently none are seen as having relevance.

The relevance of the US to European e-learning

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. Only eight states have a population of more than 10 million: California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. Nine states have populations of less than 10 but more than 6 million; 33 states have populations less than 6 million - of these, 13 states have populations in the range 1.0 to 3.0 million. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_European_Union.)

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 (July 2009) we have given details and categorisations in the wiki for just four states: California, Colorado, Florida and Illinois. These are all largeish states each 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 US ideas in e-learning 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.

United States education policy

Although some education issues are decided at federal level, much is devolved to the states.

In most states, children are required to attend school from the age of 6 or 7 (generally, kindergarten or first grade) until they turn 18 (generally bringing them through twelfth grade, the end of high school); some states allow students to leave school at 16 or 17.

American public education is operated by state and local governments, regulated by the United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. About 12% of children are enrolled in parochial or nonsectarian private schools. Just over 2% of children are homeschooled.

The United States has many competitive private and public institutions of higher education, as well as local community colleges with open admission policies.

Of Americans 25 and older, 84.6% graduated from high school, 52.6% attended some college, 27.2% earned a bachelor's degree, and 9.6% earned graduate degrees. The basic literacy rate is approximately 99%.

The United Nations assigns the United States an Education Index of 0.97, tying it for 12th in the world.

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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