Policy issues in the teaching of economics in cyberspace: Research design,course design, and research results

More than 50 colleges, universities, and community colleges now offer econo mics instruction bl cyberspace, and this number is growing rapidly. Despite the implications of this growth for the quality of economics instruction, only a small fraction of those institutions venturing into cyberlearning ar e doing so in a carefully controlled research environment. This article exa mines some important research and course design policy issues for instituti ons seeking to carefully monitor the quality and performance of their onlin e courses. It does so within the context of reporting the course design, re search design, and research results of two cyberlearning studies conducted at the University of California. (JEL A10).