The New School Online is, as of 2017, today known as Distributed and Global Education, a unit of The New School's Office of the Provost. Founded as Distance Instruction for Adult Learning (DIAL), it was established in 1993 with financial assistance from the United States Department of Education in the form of a Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) grant. The university piloted three liberal arts classes during the fall 1993 semester and launched them online during the spring 1994 semester, following collaborative evaluation with the University of Michigan.

The New School had been offering online courses since 1985 through an external vendor, Connected Education: Academic Courses via Computer Conferencing, or ConnectEd. The underlying technical infrastructure was supported by the Electronic Information Exchange System of New Jersey. At The New School, ConnectEd existed simultaneously with DIAL for a few years, possibly until DIAL was no longer considered to be in a pilot stage, and last appears in a 1996 course catalog. Paul Levinson, the founder and president of ConnectEd as well as a Media Studies faculty member, was ConnectEd's director for the entire eleven year duration. Although ConnectEd and DIAL served a similar function, there does not appear to be any personnel overlap. ConnectEd records are not present in this collection.

DIAL's stated purpose was to enable adult students with no computer experience to complete bachelor's degree requirements through "computer conferencing." During these formative semesters, only classes situated in the university's Adult Division (known as Schools of Public Engagement in 2017), under the leadership of Dean Elizabeth Dickey, were offered online to students. Stephen J. Anspacher (d. 2012), a graduate of Columbia University's Teacher's College, served as the first director of Distance Learning.

Over time, the name of the unit changed from Distance Instruction to Distance Learning, to New School Online University, to New School Online. By 2000, Anspacher's title had changed to Associate Provost for Distance Learning, and, by 2003, Anspacher's last year at The New School, the unit had dispensed with "distance learning" to become the Office of Distributed Learning Services (New School Online University). "New School Online" appears to have been last used in 2008, the most recent year represented in these records.

A key member of the unit was Christina (Tina) Yagjian, Academic Services Manager and, later, director of New School Online. Yagjian, an artist, had been teaching arts-related courses at The New School, including DIAL courses, when she was hired as manager. At the time of the records transfer to the New School Archives, Jim O'Connor was serving as director of Distributed and Global Education, although documentation of activity carried out under his direction is absent from the records.

Sources:

Kennedy, Carol Kahan and Tina Yagjian. "Creating an Early Model of Teaching at The New School." Critical Examinations of Distance Education Transformation across Disciplines. Ed. by Abigail G. Scheg. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2015. 15-43.

New School course catalogs. Public Engagement series: http://digitalarchives.library.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/collections/NS050101.01.

"Remembering Stephen J Anspacher, Pioneer of Online Distance Learning at The New School." Sep 14, 2012. New School News. Accessed May 2, 2017: https://blogs.newschool.edu/news/2012/09/remembering-stephen-j-anspacher/#.WQirmNy1t9M.