Over at Salon.com, Alex Wright has a terrific round-up of the trends and issues around taking college-credit courses online. He interviews professors, students and administrators and presents a very balanced view of the ways the internet could improve higher education, and what we could lose…

Link: Salon.com Technology | From ivory tower to academic sweatshop. (Subscription required, but you may be able to watch an Utramercial for a free read.)

Just as the Internet brought wrenching operational changes to many corporations, so online learning is triggering a seismic shift in the academic power structure. Those changes stretch far deeper than the visible presentation layer of courseware, online discussions and multimedia presentations. Distance learning is changing not only teaching methods but also the shape of the curriculum itself. As schools reach out to a market composed largely of professional, career-minded students, they face growing pressure to cater to employers’ agendas; in some cases, even wiring themselves into the corporate information technology (IT) infrastructure. If a company like Lucent underwrites online courses at a business school, it expects a direct return on its investment.