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.