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Public Dual-mode Institutionse-learning in post-secondary education 277Public universities and colleges that are primarily campus-based but also offerdistance courses as well (dual-mode institutions) are particularly difficult toanalyze in terms of student numbers and mode of delivery. In terms of institutionsthat offer distance education programs they are by far the most numerous(I counted just over a thousand institutions with at least some distanceprograms as well as campus-based operations), although the numbers ofstudents in dual-mode distance education programs are in total less than thosein autonomous distance teaching universities (one million compared to fourmillion).The great majority of dual-mode institutions are in transition from printbasedto online teaching for their distance courses. Because of the backlog ofprint-based inventory, it appears that at least two-thirds of distance coursesbeing offered are still primarily print-based. However, this figure is changingrapidly, at roughly 15 per cent a year being moved to fully online delivery. Inaddition, there are some institutions that have no print-based inventory that aregoing straight to online distance delivery. I estimate that there are probablyabout 250,000 students taking fully online courses in these institutions, mainlyin North America, Britain, and Australia. (Not included in this category areblended or mixed-mode courses; that is, courses requiring regular campusattendance. The 250,000 students taking fully online courses in conventionaluniversities would be in addition to the estimate of four million e-learnerssupplementing their campus-based courses in higher education institutions.)Commercial Post-secondary InstitutionsParticularly in the United States, but also in Malaysia, China, and India, therehave been a number of attempts to develop private or commercial forms of e-learning in higher education. Although some of these new initiatives have beenclearly successful in terms of sustainability and market penetration (for example,University of Phoenix Online, with 22,000 students in 2002–2003), othershave been nothing short of a disaster. In particular, some very prestigiousuniversities got it badly wrong in their attempts to cash in on the e-learningbonanza. Columbia University, New York University, Temple University, theUniversity of Chicago, the University of Melbourne, and the UK OpenUniversity were all involved in operations that lost a minimum of US$10million each in trying to set up for-profit e-learning operations. Thus thenumber of students in private e-learning universities is probably no more than50,000 in 2002–2003 (mainly at the University of Phoenix Online and JonesInternational University).