The Role of Virtual Universities in Achieving Goals Higher Education

The purpose of research was to study the role of virtual universities in achieving the goals of higher education from faculty member's points of view. The method of the study was descriptive, survey. The statistical population included 172 faculty members of IAU Sari Branch of which 118 were selected as the sample using Krejcie-Morgan table. A researcher made questionnaire with 28 questions having face and content validity and with reliability index of 0/937 was used to collect data. The data was analyzed by using one sample t test, Variance analysis and Scheffe post hoc. Results showed that the faculty members had positive attitude towards the role of virtual universities in achieving the goals of higher education such as, elevation and progress of our country in science and technology and international scenes, expansion of higher education in the country, training experts to hold academic and administrative positions, supervision, support and guidance of universities and scientific policy- making. Also the findings indicated that there was a meaningful difference among the opinions of faculty members regarding the role of virtual university in the advancement of science, technology and international relations.