development lending agencies need before committing 

 major new funds. Concentrating equipment in rural 

 areas and making a concerted effort to develop a wide 

 range of telemediated social services would enable the 

 poor and disadvantaged segment of the population to 

 benefit directly. The United states would also benefit 

 through the improvement of its own rural 

 telecommunications, and would be able to share in the 

 successes of other countries through evaluation and 

 information exchange. The fact that a more active 

 market for telecommunications equipment and 

 telemediated software would be stimulated by such test 

 projects should benefit U.S. industry and universities. 

 Engineering Education Exchange . Recently, a group 

 of U.S. engineering schools, which have for some time 

 been offering off-campus continuing education courses 

 in engineering subjects via television, formed the 

 Association for Media-based Continuing Engineering 

 Education (AMCEE) . In some cases these offerings have 

 constituted a complete accredited graduate degree 

 course. This association permits the group to share 

 resources and to serve new geographic areas. AMCEE is 

 currently developing a specific plan to use satellite 

 communications to extend and strengthen their services. 

 The satellite links will be used to: 



— Distribute televised course material to member 

 institutions and to industrial sites where 

 engineers enroll in the courses. In some cases, 

 the material will be redistributed via the local 

 institution's broadcasting facilities. 



— Conduct video conferences and coproduce new video 

 courseware with more than one AMCEE member 

 participating in the organization. 



Provide an interactive channel between students and 

 AMCEE institutions which can be used to monitor 

 performance, answer questions, provide access to 

 data banks, and permit rapid ordering of new course 

 material. 



It may now be appropriate to open AMCEE to 

 participation by foreign universities. Where satellite 

 coverage makes it feasible (in Latin America) , the 

 satellite interconnection could be established and a 

 two-way sharing of course material initiated. By 

 having the participating local university act as the 

 mediator and reviewer of incoming video course material 

 as well as providing counseling and grading services, 

 it is possible to avoid imposing U.S. educational 

 output directly on nationals of another country. The 

 opportunity for foreign universities to distribute 

 their own video courseware over the system lends a 

 needed element of reciprocity. 



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