Attitudes and perceptions of academic authors to the preparation of distance education materials at the University of Tasmania

This study addresses three issues in the provision of distance education at the University of Tasmania. First, it examines the nature of the instructional designer/ academic author relationship; secondly, it further explores the role of the instructional designer by comparing the perceptions of academic authors with those of the instructional designers themselves and, thirdly, it identifies some institutional factors perceived by authors as impeding the development of quality instructional materials. Finally, the paper suggests steps that might be taken to alleviate some of the problems that emerge from the research.