We are inviting participation from scholars and practitioners whose work contributes to the discussion of the role of new media in higher education and learning. The key topics and issues that this conference aims to address will center around the following questions, although this is by no means intended to be a restrictive list:

• Will universities move from institution-centered to more student-centered or `learner-centered' education? What would this shift mean to the structure, organization, reach, and quality of higher education?
  
• Have innovations in the use of ICTs in higher education demonstrated genuine promise for improving the learning process? Are students satisfied and does their performance improve?
  
• What can be learned from the experiences of other educational sectors, such as Kindergarten through 12th grade in the US, or what is called Nursery School to year 13 in the UK? What can be learned from private and corporate training programs?
  
• Will distance education complement and strengthen existing educational institutions, enhancing their efficiency and enabling them to reach larger numbers of students? Alternatively, will 'virtual universities' remain peripheral to mainstream higher education, creating a two-tier system? To the contrary, will we witness the growth of a select group of globally networked elite universities, which offer instruction and accreditation via the Internet and a network of satellite institutions?
  
• If new media do indeed offer improvements to existing forms of distance education, offering the potential to reach people across the globe who do not have access to educational opportunities, how can the use of information and communication technologies be financed? Can adequate incentives and policy mechanisms be created for the private sector to invest needed resources into extending information infrastructures that support distance education?
  
• Does the involvement of the multimedia industry and many new information providers represent a resource, or a threat, to the control of traditional gatekeepers in higher education? Will the blurring of distinctions between the producers and users of educational content erode standards, or in other ways undermine the quality of higher education? Will these new actors improve higher educational offerings?
  
• What are the costs and benefits of becoming a wired university? Are most universities under- or over-scaling their investments in information and communication technologies? Is investment in technological fixes undermining investments in more critical infrastructures or services, ranging from books to teachers?
  

To guarantee your registration or propose a paper for presentation to this iCS Conference on New Media in Higher Education and Learning, please send a title, draft abstract and a brief biographical sketch by 1 August 1999, at the latest, to:

Professor William H. Dutton
Annenberg School for Communication
University of Southern California
University Park
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0281 USA
email: wdutton@usc.edu

or

Professor Brian D. Loader
CIRA
University of Teesside
Middlesborough, Cleveland TS1 3BA
UNITED KINGDOM
email: b.d.loader@tees.ac.uk

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