Online education is the latest generation of distance education, which bridges geographical distances through systems that utilize technologies, providing access to educational opportunities to learners that may not have been otherwise available. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the evolution of technologies—beginning with the postal service (which led to correspondence education), followed by radio, television, satellites, and teleconferencing—allowed students around the globe to learn through organized educational programs. Since the early days of correspondence education, many higher education institutions have opted to create distance education systems to deliver their courses.

With the development of hypertext markup language (HTML) and the World Wide Web in the [Page 1113]early 1990s, it became possible to deliver courses and programs online to students around the world. The term online education ...