§10-5-1. Legislative findings; definitions.

(a) The Legislature hereby finds and declares that:

(1) It is the duty of this state to provide the best educational training possible for all its citizens;

(2) The encouragement and use of noncommercial educational radio, television, and related media operating and originating from educational broadcasting, closed circuit, or related facilities located at a site or sites within this state serving all the citizens of this state on a regional basis or as part of a coordinated statewide plan is a proper, necessary and beneficial means of providing and extending enriched educational instruction to all the citizens of this state at the preschool, elementary, secondary, and higher education and adult levels;

(3) Private nonprofit corporations have been established in this state for the sole purpose of raising funds for the financial support of the state's Public Broadcasting Network, which funds have been a vital source of private funding for the commission and enure to the benefit of all the citizens of the state; and

(4) Because of the unique educational benefit conferred upon and available to all the citizens of the state by the efforts of the commission and the private nonprofit corporations established for the sole purpose of providing support for public broadcasting in this state, authorizing the commission to allow its employees to work with, and its property and facilities to be used by, the private nonprofit corporations is a proper, necessary, and beneficial means of providing financial support for the state's Public Broadcasting Network.

(b) The following terms have the following meanings:

"Commission" means the Educational Broadcasting Commission established by the provisions of this article. References to “Educational Broadcasting Authority” or “the authority” throughout this article shall mean the Educational Broadcasting Commission unless the context in which used plainly requires a different meaning.

"Distance learning" means educational courses, seminars, programs, and teleconferences transmitted electronically and designed to instruct students who are remote from the instructor or other participants; such courses, seminars, programs, and teleconferences may constitute all or a significant portion of a class offered for college or public school credit, or they may be provided for faculty development, continuing professional education, for training employees of governmental agencies, nonprofit organizations, business, or industry;

"EdNet" means those individuals identified as an enterprise of the university of West Virginia college of graduate studies and West Virginia state college on behalf of the state college and university systems who are delegated the responsibility for developing, operating, and maintaining facilities for the production and transmission of distance learning; and

"SatNet" means those individuals identified as an enterprise of the state college and university systems who are delegated the responsibility for developing and providing distance learning.