t courses. In 1950, Iowa State University went on the air with WOI-TV. According to Dr. Carla Lane, a distance education consultant and an internationally recognized authority on distance learning, WOI-TV was the "World's first non-experimental, educationally owned television station." In 1963, the FCC allocated a portion of the microwave spectrum to Instructional Television Fixed Service. The California State University System was the first to apply for a license. In 1971, the British Open University began offering courses over television. As of 2005, it served more than 150,000 undergraduate and 30,000 postgraduate students, 10,000 of whom have disabilities. Nearly all of its students study part-time, and about 70% of undergraduate students work full-time. In 1987, the Mind Extension University (ME/U) was formed. An education network that focuses on higher, for-credit courses, ME/U is a division of the Jones Cable network and is carried on a cable television channel. Instructors teach for-credit college courses from colleges and universities around the country. As with conventional courses, classes include tests and assignments. Students contact instructors by email, telephone, and videoconference. The ME/U has extended service to elementary and secondary school students. An experiment in video-enabled distance learning shipped videoconferences over the Internet using FrEdMail (Free Educational Electronic Mail). The Global Schoolhouse Project linked students in Tennessee, California, Virginia and London, England and was part of a six-week joint-study curriculum about the environment. During the project, students read Vice President Al Gore's book, Earth in the Balance. At the end of the project, the students presented the information they had compiled to each other and, again, to government officials over the Internet. Funded in part by the National Science Foundation, the experiment was SO popular that it became an ongoing experiment that linked students in Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, and Europe. DISTANC