A MATTER OF DEGREE : ON-LINE COLLEGE A VIRTUAL BREEZE IN INFO AGE.

Byline: Gina Carroll Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

How's this for the college life?: Go to class and never take a single note. Never ask the prof to ``repeat that, please.'' Never step into a classroom.

Such is the life of the on-line student at a ``virtual university'' - a real-life college or university you attend via computer. More and more, students are earning college degrees - two-year, four-year, master's or doctorate - without ever setting foot on a college campus.

All you need is a computer, modem and printer, a software program to access an on-line service or the Internet, and a slightly different idea of what going to college entails.

``I always say that people shouldn't have to come to the classroom to learn,'' said Eric Boehm, president of the International School of Information Management in Denver and a contributor to the ``Oryx Guide to Distance Learning'' (Oryx Press, $98.50). ``This is the information age. It has been the information age. It's only logical that the classroom should come to them.''

In Florida, two institutions - Nova Southeastern University in Davie and Brevard Community College in Cocoa - offer degrees on line.

NSU, which began offering graduate courses on line in 1985, now offers about 90 computer, education and information sciences graduate courses on line each year. In the school of computer science, 561 students are taking classes on line this quarter, and 237 of them are on-line-only students.

Brevard began offering courses on line last fall with three degree programs; it now has 11 degree programs with 84 students enrolled on line.

Albert Koller, associate vice president of international education at Brevard Community College, knows some people won't understand the concept easily.

``Mentally, it takes a leap,'' he said. ``It's a huge change in how we do business today. We are rethinking and reinventing how we educate.''

On-line learning has its roots in distance learning, that is, correspondence courses and night or weekend classes.

As technology improved, the correspondence course evolved into televised courses. An instructor, with or without students present, was taped as he or she delivered a lecture. The tape was then aired at a later date or in satellite locations.

A partnership between Broward Community College and Edison Community College in the Naples area took this a step further.

In BCC's physical therapy assistant program, a BCC class is broadcast live to a class of students at an Edison campus. The Edison students watch the BCC class on a television monitor. If there are questions, a voice-activated camera in the Edison classroom focuses on the student asking the question, and the instructor answers it.

That type of learning requires students to be in class, however. That isn't always feasible for the average distance education student, including those on line, who generally are older than the 18- to 22-year-old college student. Most are between 30 and 50, have full-time jobs, children and/or work that requires travel.

Hence, on-line learning. As people grew more comfortable with computers at work, home computers proliferated. Those who became members of an on-line service, such as America Online or CompuServe, could find seminars on various topics on line, some for credit.

From there, it was a short leap to programs like America Online's Electronic University Network. Since 1987, EUN has been an on-line education service provider. It now works with nine schools, offering 30 on-line degrees, from associate of arts to doctorates.

As of now, most major universities don't plan to offer undergraduate courses on-line in real time. The mechanics of classes on-line for large numbers of students can be daunting - imagine 50 students in a class of 400 trying to ask the same question at once.

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Photo: Increasingly, students are earning college degrees w ithout ever setting foot on a college campus. The only requirements are a computer, modem and printer, a software program to access an on-line service or the Internet - and a slightly different idea of what going to college entails.