not be created for another decade, students were able to access class information with linked computer terminals. Online learning emerged in 1982 when the Western Behavioral Sciences Institute in La Jolla, California, opened its School of Management and Strategic Studies. The school employed computer conferencing through the New Jersey Institute of Technology's Electronic Information Exchange System (EIES) to deliver a distance education program to business executives. Starting in 1985, Connected Education offered the first totally online master's degree in media studies, through The New School in New York City, also via the EIES computer conferencing system. Subsequent courses were offered in 1986 by the Electronic University Network for DOS and Commodore 64 computers. In 2002, MIT began providing online classes free of charge. , approximately 5.5 million students were taking at least one class online. Currently, one out of three college students takes at least one online course while in college. At DeVry University, out of all students that are earning a bachelor's degree, 80% earn two-thirds of their requirements online. Also, in 2014, 2.85 million students out of 5.8 million students that took courses online, took all of their courses online. From this information, it can be concluded that the number of students taking classes online is on a steady increase. The recent article, "Shift happens: online education as a new paradigm in learning", Linda Harasim covers an overview of the history of online education as well as a framework for understanding the type of need it addresses, the concept of distance learning has already been invented for many centuries. The value of online education is not found in its ability to have established a method for distance learning, but rather in its power to make this type of learning process more efficient by providing a medium in which the instructor and their students can virtually interact with one another in real-time. The topic of online education started primarily in the late 1900s when institutions and businesses started to make products to assist students' learning. These groups desired a need to further develop educational services across the globe, primarily to developing countries. In 1960, the University of Illinois created a system of linked computer terminals, known as the Intranet, to give students access to recorded lectures and course materials that they could watch or use in their free time. This type of concept, called PLATO (programmed logic for automatic