Strategies For Sustainable Open And Distance Learning

With scarce material available in the field, this volume examines the nature of sustainability in open and distance learning in order to provide a guide to successful implementation. It is published in association with the Commonwealth of Learning.

Adaptability and the ability to handle rapid and ongoing change are essential for successfully managing any modern educational enterprise, and open and distance learning is no exception. In an often over-looked field, this volume examines the nature of sustainability in open and distance learning using case material from a wide range of current educational contexts worldwide. The books themes include: reflection and analysis of the management of change collaboration staff development quality assurance and funding in an increasingly globalized environment. This book also reassesses the core processes involved in course development, delivery, and student support, in a world that is both linked and divided by access to the latest technologies. In a rapidly changing world, this book shows how the path from policy to sustainable practice is rarely easy. However, through consistent attention and commitment to meeting the needs of learners, sustainability can be achieved.

We live in a society with ever-changing needs and expectations. Education practitioners and policy makers need therefore to face the challenges of new economic, social and technological conditions in their work. There is a global concern to develop forms of education and training which are open to the demands of needs of learners, and which are accessible at times and places suitable to those learners. Governments, institutions and practitioners are developing and implementing policies which reflect these trends. The overall theme of this book is the relationship between government and organizational policies and the work of practitioners in open and distance learning. The book does this by exploring a selection of international examples. The authors, many of them recognized experts, write from a wide range of international and organizational perspectives. Each one draws on significant experience within his or her field. Terry Evans is Head of the Graduate School of Education at Deakin University. He was the foundation director of the Master of Distance Education course there and has extensive experience teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students. Daryl Nation is Deputy Head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Monash University. He is Associate Professor in the School and divides his time between policy development, research and teaching.

This revised and updated edition of Open and Distance Learning in the Developing World sets the expansion of distance education in the context of general educational change and explores its use for basic and non-formal education, schooling, teacher training and higher education. Engaging with a range of topics, this comprehensive overview includes new material on: non-formal education: mass-communication approaches to education about HIV/AIDS and recent literacy work in India, South Africa, and Zambia schooling: new research projects in open schooling in Asia and subsaharan Africa, and interactive radio instruction in South Africa the impact of new technology and globalisation: learning delivered through the internet and mobile learning the political economy: international agencies, the role of private sector, and funding. With its critical appraisal of the facts and examination of data about effectiveness, this book provides answers to problems and poses key questions for the consideration of policy makers, educational practitioners and all professionals involved in implementing and delivering sustainable open and distance learning.

Distance Education is expanding at a faster rate cutting across national and regional boundaries. With the advent and spread of information and communication technology (ICT), distance education has embarked on a path of collaboration, networking and globalization. Quality and accreditation of distance learning programmes and experiences have become highly significant in the ICT-enabled education system. This edited book is a compilation of selected papers submitted for the International Conference 2005 of International Council for Distance Education (ICDE). The papers are grouped into four major themes internationalisation: collaboration and networking; ICT-enabled distance education; quality assurance; and distance education for development. Covering these four major themes, the selected papers give an overview of the present scenario of open and distance learning the world over. Contributors of this book bring in their experience and reflect on issues related to networking, resource sharing, collaboration, globalization and discuss challenges and possible solutions. In the ICT-enabled education section, issues covering practice, attitude towards technology and learning in online world are discussed. Quality issues in distance education are discussed in Section three, and how distance learning can influence educational and societal development are discussed in the last section.

Open and distance learning has been used in many ways in the recent past to provide both primary education and adult education. The Commonwealth of Learning works with governments, schools and universities with the aim of strengthening the capacities of Commonwealth member countries in developing human resources required for their economic and social development. Many existing policy documents link distance education with new information and communication technologies, portraying them as a promising universal access and exponential growth of learning. This book answers the key questions to these issues and assesses the impact and effect of the experience of basic education at a distance all over the world and in a wide variety of forms. This is the first major overview of this topic for twenty years.

This book considers the questions that planners and policy makers in open and distance learning need to address at any level of education.

This volume of essays from leading British, North American and Australasian contributors looks at the issues of the convergence of distance and conventional education. The term 'convergence' refers to the breaking down of barriers between open and distance learning and conventional institutions, and the creation of more and more institutions working across a range of modes. Such convergence has been driven by a number of factors, including the new technologies for teaching and learning, the impact of lifelong learning policies, the entry of larger than ever numbers of adult part-time students into tertiary education, and the demands of both employers and individuals for professional and work-related education throughout their working lives. The fourteen chapters engage critically with a range of aspects of convergence, including: * how well is open and distance learning carried out by conventional institutions for which it may continue for a lengthy period to be seen as of secondary importance? * to what extent will open and distance learning be more effectively carried out by conventional institutions able to offer a variety of modes to a wide range of learners? * how well will the variety of learners be served by systems that are converging? * what are the managerial issues at institutional level where converging systems are being developed?