Openness And Closure In Distance Education

This book examines the relationship between government and organizational policies and the work of practitioners in open and distance learning by exploring a selection of international examples

This volume contains a collection of critical reflections by teachers and administrators in open and distance education. They highlight educational problems and issues of a more general nature caused by the increased use of distance education within conventional higher education institutions.

The world of education is being radically altered with the change being driven by technology, openness, and unprecedented access to knowledge. Older correspondence-style methods of instructional delivery are passé and “classroom adapted to the web” approaches to learning are often ineffective and do little to harness the transformational potential of technology. E-Learning scenarios, mobile technologies, communication and information access, and personal learning environments are becoming mainstream and, as a result, control of the learning process is shifting away from institutions and into the hands of learners. This volumes promotes a forward-thinking agenda for research and scholarship that highlights new ideas, deep insights, and novel approaches to “unconstrained” learning.

This book brings together a collection of articles that were presented at the Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia (ODLAA) conference in February 2017. The authors share the common agenda of creating meaningful research in the field of distance education. Distinct themes in educational research including open, distance, and flexible education emerged from the conference and this collection addresses each of these themes. The themes explored include: teaching and learning playing an integral role in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) research; ways in which technology is used in the teaching of science subjects; how technology is applied in everyday lives, specifically in the areas of transport, accommodation, and in ordering food; the important and often neglected area of research related to staff development and competencies; research regarding Open Educational Practices (OEP); and the importance of distance education in developing countries, where online interaction is often a challenge – largely because of the lack of stable internet connectivity. This book was originally published as a special issue of Distance Education.

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

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book describes the history, structure and institutions of open and distance education in six countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, the UK and the US. It discusses how open and distance education is evolving in a digital age to reflect the needs and circumstances of national higher education systems in these countries, and explores the similarities and differences between the ways in which they are organized and structured. It is the first book to make such comparisons and draw conclusions about the nature of open and distance education in the context of various national higher education systems. In a digital era with growing use of online education as well as open and distance education, this book is particularly useful for policy-makers and senior administrators who want to learn about organizing and expanding open and distance education provision. It is also a valuable reference for researchers, academics and students interested in understanding the different approaches to open and distance education.

"Open and Distance Learning in the Developing World sets the expansion of distance education in the context of general educational change and reviews its use for basic and non-formal education, schooling, teacher training and higher education."--BOOK JACKET. "Hilary Perraton provides a balanced evaluation of the legitimacy, advantages and disadvantages of distance education as a way of teaching and learning."--BOOK JACKET.