Copyright 1997 CAUSE. From CAUSE/EFFECT Volume 20, Number 2, Summer 1997, pp. 55-57, 65. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage, the CAUSE copyright and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of CAUSE, the association for managing and using information resources in higher education. To disseminate otherwise, or to republish, requires written permission. For further information, contact Julia Rudy at CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301 USA; 303-939-0308; e-mail: jrudy@cause.org Seven Points to Overcome to Make the Virtual University Viable by G. D. Bothun The emergence of the virtual university (VU), an electronic world where students can take courses without physical instruction, seems to be a foregone conclusion. Whether this new kind of university assumes the form of an Internet correspondence school or is composed of intensely interactive courseware that can effectively duplicate the mentoring process is completely unclear at this time. However, as in all true learning environments, no matter what the delivery mechanism or educational interface is, content and student engagement with the material remain key. Without that, there is no quality, and without quality no university, virtual or physical, has any purpose. Much of the motivation for the VU stems from the perceived demographic need to accommodate more students at a time when public university budgets are squeezed to the point that constructing new facilities (or even modernizing extant buildings) is simply out of the question. Many states as well as individual universities are taking both small and large steps towards real implementation of virtual classes for credit. The University of Oregon (UO), for instance, has