Planning new distance teaching universities

During the 1970s, new distance teaching universities (DTUs) were established worldwide. There are indications that further DTUs will be established during the 1980s in a number of countries.Based on the experience of those who developed and promoted the sketch plans of the existing DTUs, this article seeks to identify common features in the DTU planning process and the factors which appear to promote a successful outcome.     

Editorial

Abstract

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The cost analysis of learning at a distance: Venezuela's Universidad Nacional Abierta

This paper examines the cost structure and future system costs of the distance teaching Universidad Nacional Abierta, Venezuela, and, through comparisons with other distance teaching universities, seeks to draw some initial and general conclusions concerning the cost implications of media choice, the size of an institution's academic programme, and the number of students in the system. It also seeks to illustrate the general utility of cost analysis and projection as a service to those who are required to take decisions as to the future development of an institution.     

Academic Engagement and Perceptions of Quality in Distance Education

The development of e-education has enabled distance education to overcome the lack of interactivity inherent in earlier forms of distance education based on correspondence and mass media, but it looks as if it is also pushing up the costs of distance education. In the 1960s and 1970s, the cost structure of distance education, and its ability to lower educational costs, was seen as a distinct advantage in the face of the need to expand educational provision. With the world population forecast to grow by over three billions in the next 50 years, the need for cheap ways of educating people must be paramount. This article asks just how relevant it is to global educational needs to develop more expensive forms of distance education that, in the absence of public funding, place increased financial burdens on the students.     

Student support in distance education in the 21st century: Learning from service management

The popular conception of distance education is of a system in which students receive few of the consumptive service benefits of their colleagues in full‐time education. In fact, distance educators have generally been better at articulating what they mean by student service than traditional educators. Nevertheless, the rationale developed by distance educators for providing such services is less well based, making the service side of distance education vulnerable to pressures to reduce costs. With signs of a change in what traditional students, acting within a consumerist framework, want in the way of support services, and with distance education undergoing considerable changes in the wake of the development of e‐business, there is a need to reconsider the rationale for and nature of student services, drawing on some of the thinking that has taken place in the service management sector.