While readers will find this article interesting as an attempt at a taxonomy of some of the terminology employed in various forms of distributed learning, they should not take this article as the final word on the subject. I have commented before that I have little patience for definitions, and this article reinforces that attitude. Despite appearing to provide sharp and clear definitions (include a lot of dicta about what something is "not") the article sidesteps many of the fuzzy edges. For example, it says that "Web-based learning entails content in a Web browser." Now this may seem intuitively obvious, but the definition leaves open the question of whether learning delivered via web services directly into an application counts as web based learning. My advice is to leave it open. Say it like this: "Web based learning may involve the use of a web browser. It is typically delivered using HTML and may include the use of a variety of media players and applets. It may be delivered using the internet but may also be delivered in the same format using a CD-ROM." The idea is to suggest a set of properties that a type of learning may resemble enough to be called web based learning without attempting to discern sharp edges where none exist (for more do a search on 'Ludwig Wittgenstein' and 'family resemblances').
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