Sharing Insights: Teachers’ Problems and Accomplishments in their Online Day-to-Day Teaching

Setting The Stage

The World Conference on Higher Education (UNESCO, 1998) was instrumental in setting the pace of development of higher education at the global, regional and national levels. The document emphasizes the necessity to offer continuous access to education to all members of society “by creating new learning environments ranging from distance education facilities to complete virtual higher education institutions and systems, capable of bridging distances and developing high-quality systems of education, thus serving social and economic advancement and democratization as well as other priorities of society” (UNESCO, 2002, p. 88). In Mexico, the National Association of Universities and Institutions of Higher Education, ANUIES for its initials in Spanish, endorses online teaching and learning in higher education (ANUIES, 1999). Due to the increasing demand for higher education, ANUIES is developing a virtual university system to complement the present system (Ruiz, 1997; ANUIES, 2002). These international and national policies have begun to affect state universities and are currently influencing budgets and universities’ priorities (Rodríguez, 2002).