TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND NURSING-EDUCATION

Telecommunications are becoming increasingly important to nursing educ ators. At the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing , communication by two-way television, computers, facsimile machines, and telephone conferences is essential to the administration and opera tion of a school with four divisions located across 500 miles. Two-way television is available through one system that uses satellite and fi beroptic technology and another that uses telephone lines. The four ca mpuses of the college share classes, administrative meetings, and conf erences through television. Faculty members teaching via TV are orient ed to designing instructional material for transmission and to the min or quirks of the technology. Students in TV classes must be aware of t heir responsibility for active involvement in learning. Studies have f ound no significant differences in the grades of students in ''live'' classrooms and those in TV classrooms, but both faculty and students p refer the face-to-face situation. The College of Nursing uses computer s extensively on an internal network linking the four campuses for E-m ail, file transfer, computer-assisted instruction, and administrative information sharing. Another computer network, Synapse Health Resource s Online, links the college and the Medical Center with health profess ionals in rural areas throughout the state.