Distance education experience with electric power courses at the university of Iceland

At universities around the world, web based on-line distance education is increasingly being offered for advanced engineering education. This includes electric power engineering where individual courses and even complete university degrees are being awarded based on internet based distance education resources and on-line interaction between students and their instructors. This paper describes the experience of the author of giving and managing on-line undergraduate and graduate courses, in particular courses in electric machines and in electric power economics. These courses have for many years been a part of the standard curriculum in electrical engineering at the University of Iceland (UI) based on traditional class-room based instruction. However, this author´s experience of conducting these courses may cast a light on the difficulties of introducing online education when a system of traditional class room based education is rigidly in place. Furthermore, this paper describes the status of on-line education of UI, School of Engineering and Natural Sciences (SENS) and at other Schools within UI. From experience it is this author´s conclusion and belief that on-line distance education will evolve in electric power engineering and other disciplines at UI, but major administrative and management hurdles have to be overcome and various conflicts resolved. There are numerous challenges to address, and internet based input and contents will most likely complement and support traditional but reduced face to face interaction. Factors such as discipline, inspiration, support and guidance are a part of the instructor student relationship that is a challenge to maintain on the internet. It is expected that internet based education should evolve rapidly in the near future both in electrical engineering and other disciplines. It is this authors opinion that a strong leadership, a focused legal framework and a firm policy are among the elements needed for distance education to be successful in spite of the remarkable opposition and criticism at present.