About 15 years before 2015, online education amounted to little more than filming a university lecturer and recording.

True if historical accounts of online and distance education around 1995–2005, about 15 years before 2015, show that the main form of university online courses was recorded or filmed lectures with little interactivity. Mostly true if recorded lectures were the main form but there were some other significant forms (e.g. early discussion forums or course-management systems) that the claim slightly understates. Mixed if recorded lectures were one of several equally common formats. Mostly false if recorded lectures existed but were a minor part of online education at the time, so the claim overstates their role. False if the evidence shows online education at that time was mainly something else and recorded lectures were not a significant feature.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 From the Margins to the Mainstream: The Shift in Distance Education over the Past Thirty Years | UNBOUND UNBOUND (UPCEA) · 14 September 2015

   “While the early online courses were primarily text, as we were still tied to 56k modems for most of our users at a distance, we could start to integrate graphics and animated images into our course designs to help visualize the content for students.”

2. E2 From the Margins to the Mainstream: The Shift in Distance Education over the Past Thirty Years | UNBOUND UNBOUND (UPCEA) · 14 September 2015

   “This also led to the first learning management systems like WebCT, which brought the familiar classroom experience online.”

3. E3 WebCT Meets Edith Cowan University Memorial University of Newfoundland, Faculty of Education (Bruce L. Mann) · 2000

   “The WebCT conferencing system has a threaded, multi-fora asynchronous electronic conference.”

4. E4 History of virtual learning environments in the 1990s owiki.org (wiki compilation)

   “In June 1997, Gotham Writers' Workshop launched its online division; classes feature blackboard lectures, class discussion bulletin boards, interactive chat, homework posting/individual teacher response, group assignment posting/group critique files.”

An independent 2015 account says early online courses were primarily text because most distance users were limited to 56k modems, with graphics and animations added over time (E1). It also says early learning management systems such as WebCT brought the classroom experience online (E2). A contemporary account from 2000 describes WebCT's threaded asynchronous discussion conferencing (E3), and a 1997 online programme used bulletin boards, chat and homework posting (E4). This points to a main form of online education other than filmed lectures, so the claim overstates their role, but no source directly rules out recorded lectures as a significant feature, so the verdict is mostly false rather than false.