Paulsen, M. F. 2003. Online Education and Learning Management Systems.

Book Review

By Eilif Trondsen, Ph.D., Founder and CEO, eLearning Forum, U.S.A.

Online Education by Morten Paulsen is an interesting and important contribution to the growing literature on technology-enabled learning. Despite the book cover art and the subtitle focusing on Learning Management Systems (LMS) the scope of the book goes far beyond LMS, providing a very useful historical and international review and perspective of online education (focusing mostly on the experience in the academic sector of online learning and, of course, with a special emphasis on the Nordic countries). Such an international, and comparative, analysis is valuable and interesting-particularly as more and more players hope (even if perhaps not very realistically) to conquer the global learning market place with online educational service exports.

Paulsen faults the Nordic, and perhaps especially the Norwegian, policymakers for not thinking more broadly to support the export potential of online educational services. This is a fascinating issue that I wish Paulsen had addressed in more depth and detail, especially in view of the relatively recent failure of the large eUniversity initiative in the UK-a British consortium of various UK-based universities that, like so many others around the world, had hoped to leverage the strengths of domestic universities into the global educational market. But like so many other online educational ventures described at least briefly by Paulsen in the book the eUniversity venture ended in failure despite a very substantial financial investment by the British taxpayers in the project.

Paulsen's book is a welcome contribution to the literature on online learning, and particularly important as the field is evolving rapidly in a very dynamic (and challenging) environment-and since online learning is still far from reaching its full potential (even with the technology that exists today).

Although I enjoyed reading the book and found much useful information in it, I also found some weak spots, at least in my view, in the following areas:

The unique characteristics of the Nordic model. A number of references were made to this but I wish Paulsen had provided more details so that the readers could gain a very clear picture of what the unique features of the "Nordic model" is. Perhaps I read too much between the lines, but I was left with the impression that Paulsen feels this Nordic model is superior to that of other countries/regions and it would therefore have been nice to see a more detailed and in-depth comparative analysis.
A Nordic model or Nordic diversity? An important part of the valuable contribution of this book lies in the descriptions and anecdotes of the Nordic online educational ventures and experiences. But I was left with the impression that these Nordic experiences reflect a considerable diversity of philosophy and approach-also true in the area of educational policy-and this raised the question as to whether there really is a "Nordic model."
Educational political rhetoric. I recognize the sensitivity in many parts of the world-including Canada, of course-to US economic and political thinking and doctrines that many take strong issue with. But the reference in the book to "US educational imperialism" (referred to by Dr. Dominque Abrioux in the "Canadian Postscript") was, in my view, misplaced. I felt this to be the case especially since I could find no evidence presented by Paulsen or Abrioux to support the claim of such imperialism. Even if such rhetoric might be common and popular in certain circles I felt is did not belong in Paulsen's book.
Dated materials. It is hard to overcome the problem that most books face, especially as we increasingly get used to accessing current information on demand on the Internet. Because of the time typically required to write, edit and publish a book manuscript, a book is often seriously out of date by the time it comes out. This problem is exacerbated in Paulsen's case as much of the book is based on previously published materials that he was not able to update. Thus, in many cases I was left wondering what has happened to some of these ventures and programs that were described and what the current status and future prospect are of these ventures-including the most recently launched virtual universities in Sweden and Finland, for instance. But this is where Paulsen's approach of combining book and web publishing can be a major advantage and hopefully he will take advantage of the website created for the book to post updates on many of the interesting online ventures described in the book. Perhaps some of the people involved in some of these ventures could contribute some of their own thoughts, including what has gone right and wrong up to now in these projects.