Distance education, as we mentioned previously, has some very attractive features for large educational institutions: lower potential costs; time flexibility for students and instructors; greater service to customers who must commute long distances, or indeed, who may be physically located anywhere in the world. In fact, there has been a movement to "profit-oriented" universities, which use distance education for their adult learners. Universities like NYU have explicitly stated their intention to capture the adult learner "market", leaving other institutions of higher learning to deal with the expensive and troublesome education of undergraduates.

But finances are only the most obvious hoped-for consequences of the movement of educational institutions into cyberspace. Down the road, there will be impacts on the environment, on social and family structures, even on the physical nature of our educational institutions. (How many classroom buildings do you need on a campus? For that matter, what is a "campus"? Should it have an alumni stadium? (joke) Universities are now recruiting distance learning Adjunct Professors from all over the United States. How long do you think it will be before they recruit from outside the U.S.? Distance education will present significant challenges to all of us in the future electronic learning place.

The theory supporting distance education is much debated, and still in development. Educators are saying that the need for education is much larger than ever conceived before, and that the increase of knowledge has caused a great need for continuing, very current, "lifelong learning". This form of education (again says theory) is "learner oriented" rather than "instructor oriented". An adult learner chooses the time, the date, the mode of learning, and the point in his or her career when particular knowledge is needed. Perhaps the learner should even choose the depth, the emphasis, and the interaction with peers and instructors, all based on the requirements of job, career and ambitions.

At this point, however, many question whether the current techniques and the technologies of distance education are up to the task. Correspondence courses are widely seen as an "inferior" form of education, suitable only for those who can't access "real" education in a classroom. How is computer-based learning (student interacting only with a computer) better than filling in correspondence course questions with #2 pencils? Does a teacher add any value to a course? Is the knowledge gained even any different?

Well, actually it is. CAT scans of human brains engaged in learning show that the processes of learning, the senses, the activities involved, all impact on the learning process. Students who learn something from reading off a CRT screen show brain activity much different from the activity involved in classroom learning. At a guess, the actual process of learning now appears to govern where and how information is stored in the brain, and is likely to affect how (and how easily) that information is retrieved.

Granted that Abraham Lincoln taught himself by firelight, does a teacher add anything to the process of education? I've taken several years of correspondence courses (including the Air War College, a very important stage of my personal career) and I'd like to suggest that a teacher:

1) Tailors class material to the individual tastes, capabilities and learning styles of the students.

2) Updates material with the latest information and otherwise relate it to the present audience.

3) Interacts with students: explicitly through questions; implicitly as a result of gesture, facial expression and other subtle feedback.

4) Controls and manages the education process, partly through positive motivation and entertainment, partly through organization and presentation, partly through negative discipline and grading. (I know that's not popular, but it had to be said.)

When I look over the listing, I find that the latest technologies allow a machine to do some of these things very well, (How about immediate, very individualized, untiring feedback) but that it still does other things very poorly (relating subjects to the latest information in the newspapers or periodicals). The technology is excellent for many learning requirements, but entirely inadequate for others. But it continues to develop. For example, the IRMC is now experimenting with Real Publisher, a software package which promises to deliver streaming video and sound to up to 100 students at a time, anywhere in the world that can be reached by Internet. Demonstrations, technical processes, discussions can now be shown by film rather than described in text. This software will bring us closer to the form of education that teachers know and understand - - the skills of interacting in the classroom.

No matter what your personal opinions on the value of distance education, there are some things you can do to begin merging onto the Information Highway. For example, you may wish to start using the Internet more in your classes. Internet graphics and bibliographies and demos and whatever, can be used in the class, and as a transition is made, can also be used for online courses, virtually unchanged. We are doing it now in several classes.

The techniques of distance learning will bring us to interesting times and interesting challenges. While we can't project specific outcomes, it seems more and more likely that online systems will be a very common form of education "delivery". And for the most interesting reasons.

Radford University recently received $1.5 million to extend distance learning to its "customers" in the counties surrounding the school. While there may or may not be dollars saved by the school, the program is designed to save the local citizens the costs of commuting, dormitories, parking fees, and, in other words, significantly lower the supporting costs of education to students and parents. An unusual, and potentially very popular, form of distance education. California, Maryland and other states are working on variations of this educational format. Distance education, it seems, will very likely be in all our futures.

In the epic struggle between traditional operational platforms and IT, IT is gaining new footholds. The potential for information to improve operations is being realized across a wider and wider spectrum of agency missions. Perhaps, nowhere is this better illustrated than in the Coast Guard, where traditional operational missions, such as life saving, maritime safety, and law enforcement are increasingly using IT to create efficiencies and improve performance.

Coast Guard missions have historically been achieved by large operational platforms (ships, airplanes and helicopters) and a Semper Paratus (Always Ready) operationally-focused labor force. With roots dating back to the 1700's, the Life-Saving Service, the Coast Guard, is steeped in sea-going and military tradition. Dramatic ocean rescues and large-scale humanitarian relief efforts define a corporate culture of bravery, sacrifice and service.

To prepare to enter this culture, graduates from the Coast Guard Academy must first be "indoctrinated" into the service. They learn naval engineering and navigation skills. They spend their first duty tour on a ship, and they spend most of their career in command of large operational units. Consisting of human resources and equipment, Coast Guard units are the "brawn" that perform the agency’s mission. The operations platforms are large, physical and tangible. They carry crewman, burn fuel, hoist buoys and survivors, and make headlines. Expensive to operate and difficult to manage, these units demand the undivided focus of their commanding officers. Therefore, it is not surprising that when IT came along, it was viewed by operations officers as more of an administrative asset than an operational one.

However, today’s Coast Guard operations officers are increasingly turning to IT, the "brain" if you will, to enhance their mission performance. Traditional "brawn" missions such as Search and Rescue, Vessel Inspections and Ship Boardings are aided by global positioning, computer modeling and database systems to make more efficient use of operational assets.

While EPIRBs can work wonders when they are employed, they are useless if they are rendered inoperable by a loss of power or on-board casualty (fire, loss or destruction). Additionally, there are many situations in which an EPIRB is simply unavailable. A sailboat lost at sea, a ship that mysteriously fails to report status or a drifting lifeboat (referred to as targets) could spend critical hours or even days in the open ocean before search assets are deployed. To improve the chances of detecting these targets during a search, computer modeling is used to perform simulations. Oceanographic and meteorological data (ocean currents and weather) along with target drift characteristics are input into an open ocean drift model. Using a host of variables the model computes thousands of simulated drifts to determine the most likely drift scenario. That data is then used to develop a search plan which combines the known aspects of various Coast Guard assets (speed, range, fuel consumption) and visibility data (cloud cover, waves) to determine the optimal search pattern. The result is that deployed operational assets spend more time searching ‘hot’ areas where detection is more likely.

Commercial shipping brings thousands of vessels to U.S. ports every year. The Coast Guard, charged with inspecting these vessels for safety, deploys marine inspectors by the hundreds to crawl in and out of the ship’s cargo holds and across the decks identifying safety violations. But with millions of dollars to be made in shipping, what incentive can be employed to ensure that violators will remedy safety shortfalls? The answer: a Coast Guard database that tracks violations, issues "tickets" (financial penalties) and makes all inspection data available to the shipping insurance industry. Now, even if the financial penalties levied by the Federal Government pale in comparison to shipping profits, the likelihood that a habitual offender will be insured to carry goods is low. As such, shippers are motivated to maintain a proven track record of safety and compliance with maritime regulations.

To enhance the Coast Guard’s law enforcement mission and improve operational efficiency, operations officers sought ways to identify ships that were more likely to be engaged in illegal activity before expending the effort to board and inspect them. Through an analysis of thousands of previous boardings and cargo inspections, they determined that ships involved in illegal activities once were very likely to be involved again. Even though the crew and/or owner of the ship may change, and even the flag under which the vessel sailed might change, the ship was likely to again be used in illegal activity (for example: fisheries violations, drug smuggling, customs or embargo violations). In response to this information, the Coast Guard developed a database to track all boardings and violations. A real-time satellite connection to the database was developed so that ships at sea can query the database using the identifying markings and characteristics of the vessel. Any previously entered violations are then relayed via satellite to the ship and a decision to board the ship can be better evaluated. By boarding more ships that are likely to be involved in illegal activity, the Coast Guard has improved its operational efficiency and mission performance.

IT Systems are Not Bullet Proof

While the implementation of IT systems has had a dramatic effect on operational efficiency and the Coast Guard mission has been largely improved, it is not without its problems. For example, EPIRBs can be accidentally triggered causing false distress signals. Also, computer simulations to develop drift scenarios rely critically on the quality of the data that is input. Fast changing weather conditions or inaccurate target characteristics can result in assets searching in the wrong location. Additionally, vessel inspectors, now reliant on the tracking database to do their job, can not afford to have the computer down. Interruptions in computer service cause ‘backlogs’ of manually documented inspections which must be entered into the database when the system is back online. Lastly, satellite communications to sea-going vessels requires a complex system of protocols and "middleware." Under certain conditions circuit failures or ‘disconnects’ occur requiring radio contact with an ashore unit to retrieve boarding data.

The Information Technology Department has put together a suite of computer security demonstrations that graphically portray the inherent vulnerabilities of organizational networks and the Internet. We demonstrate the following hacker tools: password cracking, sniffers, electronic mail bombing, virus creation software, WinNuke (a blue screen attack), port scanners, the ping-of-death, an IP address scan, and a keystroke monitoring program. In addition to hacker tools, we also demonstrate defensive measures that an organization can use to protect their network: Intrusion detection software (Kane Security Analyst), Internet Scanner by Internet Security Systems, software encryption (Pretty Good Privacy and Cryptext), and hardware encryption (NetFortress).

We are continually upgrading and modifying our computer security demonstrations with the latest hacking techniques available today. Our goal is to ensure that all students are aware of the enormous threat that we face in the digital world. It is critical to understand our enemy in order to implement the proper countermeasures and protect our valuable information infrastructure.

Our computer security technology demonstrations will be expanded during the next six to eight months with the Information Security Wargaming System (ISWS). This system will provide students with an interactive expert system based upon three modes of operation: tutorial, role-playing and seminar war gaming. It has been designed by Dr. Jack Egan and will be available as an NDU asset for all colleges to utilize. The ISWS will allow students to actively participate in a simulated network attack and defense scenario. Computer security is often a difficult area to comprehend and master, but through demonstrations and graphical interaction, we can help promote experiential learning in the classroom.

John Koskinen, Assistant to the President and Chairman of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, spoke October 1 to the Department of the Interior as part of their Y2k Awareness Day. He expressed appreciation to the DOI employees for their hard work and dedication in addressing the problem. It is a difficult, arduous task that is not very intellectually stimulating, but it must be done.

The Y2k problem is unique in that the technical solution is known. It is more a management problem because there is a need to apply a relatively simple corrective action to a vast number of interrelated computer systems. It is a far-reaching problem since we are in a global village with many interdependencies and interfaces. He recently met with Japanese government officials and they plan to take very dramatic action, which is different from the generally introspective approach they normally use. He also mentioned that Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State, has cabled all ambassadors request that they make the countries aware of the y2k problem.

The problem is not just related to the mainframe; it can be found in computer chips embedded within many operational systems. Our nation's productivity is dependent on industrial infrastructure systems such as waste treatment plants, oil refineries, and cargo ships. These systems contain computer chips with date routines. Although only 2-3% of the chips are expected to have a Y2k failure, this represents about 40 billion chips in the world.

The President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, established on February 4, 1998, by Executive Order 13073, is responsible for coordinating the Federal Government's efforts to address the year 2000 problem. The Council is comprised of representatives from more than 30 major Federal executive and regulatory agencies. Agency heads personally chose their Council representatives, the majority of whom are Deputy Secretaries or Chief Information Officers. Presently, the council is concerned about the following:

• International implications. Some countries have done relatively little to assess their financial, telecommunications, transportation and other key systems for Y2k problems.
• State and local communities. Many small and medium-size businesses have not progressed very much. Perhaps they do not have the resources to assess and fix the problem. Only a small percent of local governments have actually taken action on the problem.
• Overreaction. People may overreact to the problem by withdrawing money from banks and the stock market or by buying and hoarding food and gasoline. They want citizens to focus on real problems and not perceived ones.

Mr. Koskinen is confident that the deadlines will be met. He anticipates that there will be an emergency fund available for agencies to correct their y2k problems. After his presentation, he left to attend a 60 Minutes interview. This indicates the high level of interest that the Y2k problem has generated.