Distance education or long-distance learning is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school. Traditionally, this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via post. Today it involves online education.
A distance learning program can be completely distance learning, or a
combination of distance learning and traditional classroom instruction
(called hybrid or blended). Massive open online courses (MOOCs), offering large-scale interactive participation and open access through the World Wide Web or other network technologies, are recent developments in distance education.
A number of other terms (distributed learning, e-learning, online
learning, virtual classroom etc.) are used roughly synonymously with
distance education.
History
One of the earliest attempts was advertised in 1728. This was in the Boston Gazette for "Caleb Philipps, Teacher of the new method of Short Hand", who sought students who wanted to learn through weekly mailed lessons.
The first distance education course in the modern sense was provided by Sir Isaac Pitman in the 1840s, who taught a system of shorthand by mailing texts transcribed into shorthand on postcards
and receiving transcriptions from his students in return for
correction. The element of student feedback was a crucial innovation of
Pitman's system. This scheme was made possible by the introduction of uniform postage rates across England in 1840.
This early beginning proved extremely successful, and the
Phonographic Correspondence Society was founded three years later to
establish these courses on a more formal basis. The Society paved the
way for the later formation of Sir Isaac Pitman Colleges across the
country.
The first correspondence school in the United States was the Society to Encourage Studies at Home, which was founded in 1873.
University correspondence courses
The University of London was the first university to offer distance learning degrees, establishing its External Programme in 1858. The background to this innovation lay in the fact that the institution (later known as University College London) was non-denominational
and, given the intense religious rivalries at the time, there was an
outcry against the "godless" university. The issue soon boiled down to
which institutions had degree-granting powers and which institutions did not.
The London University in 1827, drawn by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd.
The compromise solution that emerged in 1836 was that the sole
authority to conduct the examinations leading to degrees would be given
to a new officially recognized entity called the "University of London", which would act as examining body for the University of London colleges, originally University College London and King's College London, and award their students University of London degrees. As Sheldon Rothblatt states: "Thus arose in nearly archetypal form the famous English distinction between teaching and examining, here embodied in separate institutions."
With the state giving examining powers to a separate entity, the
groundwork was laid for the creation of a programme within the new
university which would both administer examinations and award
qualifications to students taking instruction at another institution or
pursuing a course of self-directed study.
Referred to as "People's University" by Charles Dickens because it provided access to higher education to students from less affluent backgrounds, the External Programme was chartered by Queen Victoria in 1858, making the University of London the first university to offer distance learning degrees to students. Enrollment increased steadily during the late 19th century, and its example was widely copied elsewhere.
This program is now known as the University of London International
Programme and includes Postgraduate, Undergraduate and Diploma degrees
created by colleges such as the London School of Economics, Royal
Holloway and Goldsmiths.
William Rainey Harper, encouraged the development of external university courses at the new University of Chicago in the 1890s.
In the United States, William Rainey Harper, first president of the University of Chicago, celebrated the concept of extended education, whereby the research university had satellite colleges in the wider community.
In 1892, Harper encouraged correspondence courses to further
promote education, an idea that was put into practice by Chicago,
Wisconsin, Columbia, and several dozen other universities by the 1920s Columbia University. Enrollment in the largest private for-profit school based in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the International Correspondence Schools
grew explosively in the 1890s. Founded in 1888 to provide training for
immigrant coal miners aiming to become state mine inspectors or foremen,
it enrolled 2500 new students in 1894 and matriculated 72,000 new
students in 1895. By 1906 total enrollments reached 900,000. The growth
was due to sending out complete textbooks instead of single lessons, and
the use of 1200 aggressive in-person salesmen. There was a stark contrast in pedagogy:
The regular technical school or college aims to educate a man broadly; our aim, on the contrary, is to educate him only along some particular line. The college demands that a student shall have certain educational qualifications to enter it and that all students study for approximately the same length of time; when they have finished their courses they are supposed to be qualified to enter any one of a number of branches in some particular profession. We, on the contrary, are aiming to make our courses fit the particular needs of the student who takes them.
Education was a high priority in the Progressive Era,
as American high schools and colleges expanded greatly. For men who
were older or were too busy with family responsibilities, night schools
were opened, such as the YMCA school in Boston that became Northeastern University. Outside the big cities, private correspondence schools offered a flexible, narrowly focused solution.
Large corporations systematized their training programs for new
employees. The National Association of Corporation Schools grew from 37
in 1913 to 146 in 1920. Starting in the 1880s, private schools opened
across the country which offered specialized technical training to
anyone who enrolled, not just the employees of one company. Starting in
Milwaukee in 1907, public schools began opening free vocational
programs.
Only a third of the American population lived in cities of
100,000 or more population In 1920; to reach the rest, correspondence
techniques had to be adopted. Australia, with its vast distances, was
especially active; the University of Queensland established its Department of Correspondence Studies in 1911. In South Africa, the University of South Africa,
formerly an examining and certification body, started to present
distance education tuition in 1946. The International Conference for
Correspondence Education held its first meeting in 1938.
The goal was to provide individualized education for students, at low
cost, by using a pedagogy of testing, recording, classification, and
differentiation.
The organization has since been renamed as the International Council
for Open and Distance Education (ICDE), with headquarters in Oslo, Norway.
Open universities
Walton Hall, renovated in 1970 to act as the headquarters of the newly established Open University. (Artist: Hilary French)
The Open University in the United Kingdom was founded by the-then Labour government led by Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, based on the vision of Michael Young. Planning commenced in 1965 under the Minister of State for Education, Jennie Lee,
who established a model for the Open University (OU) as one of widening
access to the highest standards of scholarship in higher education, and
set up a planning committee consisting of university vice-chancellors,
educationalists and television broadcasters, chaired by Sir Peter
Venables. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Assistant Director of Engineering at the time, James Redmond, had obtained most of his qualifications at night school,
and his natural enthusiasm for the project did much to overcome the
technical difficulties of using television to broadcast teaching
programmes.
The Open University revolutionised the scope of the
correspondence program and helped to create a respectable learning
alternative to the traditional form of education. It has been at the
forefront of developing new technologies to improve the distance
learning service as well as undertaking research in other disciplines. Walter Perry was appointed the OU's first vice-chancellor in January 1969, and its foundation secretary was Anastasios Christodoulou. The election of the new Conservative government under the leadership of Edward Heath, in 1970; led to budget cuts under Chancellor of the Exchequer Iain Macleod (who had earlier called the idea of an Open University "blithering nonsense").
However, the OU accepted its first 25,000 students in 1971, adopting a
radical open admissions policy. At the time, the total student
population of conventional universities in the United Kingdom was around
130,000.
Athabasca University, Canada's Open University, was created in 1970 and followed a similar, though independently developed, pattern. The Open University inspired the creation of Spain's National University of Distance Education (1972) and Germany's FernUniversität in Hagen (1974). There are now many similar institutions around the world, often with the name "Open University" (in English or in the local language).
Most open universities
use distance education technologies as delivery methods, though some
require attendance at local study centres or at regional "summer
schools". Some open universities have grown to become mega-universities, a term coined to denote institutions with more than 100,000 students.
Technologies
Internet technology has enabled many forms of distance learning through open educational resources and facilities such as e-learning and MOOCs.
Although the expansion of the Internet blurs the boundaries, distance
education technologies are divided into two modes of delivery: synchronous learning and asynchronous learning.
In synchronous learning, all participants are "present" at the
same time. In this regard, it resembles traditional classroom teaching
methods despite the participants being located remotely. It requires a
timetable to be organized. Web conferencing, videoconferencing, educational television, instructional television are examples of synchronous technology, as are direct-broadcast satellite (DBS), internet radio, live streaming, telephone, and web-based VoIP.
Web conferencing software helps to facilitate meetings in distance
learning courses and usually contain additional interaction tools such
as text chat, polls, hand raising, emoticons etc. These tools also
support asynchronous participation by students being able to listen to
recordings of synchronous sessions. Immersive environments (notably
SecondLife) have also been used to enhance participant presence in
distance education courses. Another form of synchronous learning that
has been entering the classroom over the last couple of years is the use
of robot proxies including those that allow sick students to attend classes.
Some universities have been starting to use robot proxies to
enable more engaging synchronous hybrid classes where both remote and in
person students can be present and interact using telerobotics
devices such as the Kubi Telepresence robot stand that looks around and
the Double Robot that roams around. With these telepresence robots, the
remote students have a seat at the table or desk instead of being on a
screen on the wall.
In asynchronous learning, participants access course materials
flexibly on their own schedules. Students are not required to be
together at the same time. Mail correspondence, which is the oldest form
of distance education, is an asynchronous delivery technology, as are message board forums, e-mail, video and audio recordings, print materials, voicemail, and fax.
The two methods can be combined. Many courses offered by both
open universities and an increasing number of campus based institutions
use periodic sessions of residential or day teaching to supplement the
sessions delivered at a distance. This type of mixed distance and campus based education has recently come to be called "blended learning"
or less often "hybrid learning". Many open universities uses a blend of
technologies and a blend of learning modalities (face-to-face,
distance, and hybrid) all under the rubric of "distance learning".
Distance learning can also use interactive radio instruction (IRI), interactive audio instruction (IAI), online virtual worlds, digital games, webinars, and webcasts, all of which are referred to as e-Learning.
Radio and television
The rapid spread of film in the 1920s and radio in the 1930s led to proposals to use it for distance education.
By 1938, at least 200 city school systems, 25 state boards of
education, and many colleges and universities broadcast educational
programs for the public schools. One line of thought was to use radio as a master teacher.
Experts in given fields broadcast lessons for pupils within the many schoolrooms of the public school system, asking questions, suggesting readings, making assignments, and conducting tests. This mechanizes education and leaves the local teacher only the tasks of preparing for the broadcast and keeping order in the classroom.
A typical setup came in Kentucky in 1948 when John Wilkinson Taylor, president of the University of Louisville, teamed up with NBC to use radio as a medium for distance education, The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission
endorsed the project and predicted that the "college-by-radio" would
put "American education 25 years ahead". The University was owned by the
city, and local residents would pay the low tuition rates, receive
their study materials in the mail, and listen by radio to live classroom
discussions that were held on campus. Physicist Daniel Q. Posin also was a pioneer in the field of distance education when he hosted a televised course through DePaul University.
Charles Wedemeyer of the University of Wisconsin–Madison also promoted new methods. From 1964 to 1968, the Carnegie Foundation funded Wedemeyer's Articulated Instructional Media Project
(AIM) which brought in a variety of communications technologies aimed
at providing learning to an off-campus population. The radio courses
faded away in the 1950s. Many efforts to use television along the same lines proved unsuccessful, despite heavy funding by the Ford Foundation.
From 1970 to 1972 the Coordinating Commission for Higher
Education in California funded Project Outreach to study the potential
of telecourses. The study included the University of California, California State University
and the community colleges. This study led to coordinated instructional
systems legislation allowing the use of public funds for non-classroom
instruction and paved the way for the emergence of telecourses as the
precursor to the online courses and programs of today. The Coastline Community Colleges, The Dallas County Community College District, and Miami Dade Community College led the way. The Adult Learning Service of the US Public Broadcasting Service
came into being and the “wrapped” series, and individually produced
telecourse for credit became a significant part of the history of
distance education and online learning.
Internet
The widespread use of computers and the internet have made distance learning easier and faster, and today virtual schools and virtual universities deliver full curricula online.
The capacity of Internet to support voice, video, text and immersion
teaching methods made earlier distinct forms of telephone,
videoconferencing, radio, television, and text based education somewhat
redundant. However, many of the techniques developed and lessons learned
with earlier media are used in Internet delivery.
The first completely online course for credit was offered by the University of Toronto in 1984 through the Graduate School of Education (then called OISE: the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education).
The topic was “Women and Computers in Education”, dealing with gender
issues and educational computing. The first new and fully online
university was founded in 1994 as the Open University of Catalonia, headquartered in Barcelona, Spain. In 1999 Jones International University was launched as the first fully online university accredited by a regional accrediting association in the US.
Between 2000 and 2008, enrollment in distance education courses
increased rapidly in almost every country in both developed and
developing countries. Many private, public, non-profit
and for-profit institutions worldwide now offer distance education
courses from the most basic instruction through to the highest levels of
degree and doctoral programs. New York University, International University Canada, for example, offers online degrees in engineering and management-related fields through NYU Tandon Online.
Levels of accreditation vary: widely respected universities such as
Stanford University and Harvard now deliver online courses—but other
online schools receive little outside oversight, and some are actually
fraudulent, i.e., diploma mills. In the US, the Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC) specializes in the accreditation of distance education institutions.
In the United States in 2011, it was found that a third of all
the students enrolled in postsecondary education had taken an accredited
online course in a postsecondary institution.
Even though growth rates are slowing, enrollment for online courses has
been seen to increase with the advance in technology. The majority of
public and private colleges now offer full academic programs online. These include, but are not limited to, training programs in the mental health, occupational therapy, family therapy, art therapy, physical therapy, and rehabilitation counseling fields.
Distance education has a long history, but its popularity and use
has grown exponentially as more advanced technology has become
available. By 2008, online learning programs were available in the
United States in 44 states at the K-12 level.
Internet forums, online discussion group and online learning community can contribute to an efficacious distance education experience. Research shows that socialization plays an important role in some forms of distance education.
E-courses are also a viable option for distance learning. There are many available that cover a broad range of topics.
Paced and self-paced models
Distance
education can be delivered in a paced format similar to traditional
campus based models in which learners commence and complete a course at
the same time. Paced delivery is currently the most common mode of
distance education delivery. Alternatively, some institutions offer
self-paced programs that allow for continuous enrollment and the length
of time to complete the course is set by the learner's time, skill and
commitment levels. Paced courses may be offered in either synchronous
mode, but self-paced courses are almost always offered asynchronously.
Each delivery model offers both advantages and disadvantages for
students, teachers and institutions.
Kaplan and Haenlein classify distance education into four groups along the dimensions Time dependency and Number of participants: 1) MOOCs
(Massive Open Online Courses): Open-access online course (i.e., without
specific participation restrictions) that allows for unlimited
(massive) participation; 2) SPOCs
(Small Private Online Courses): Online course that only offers a
limited number of places and therefore requires some form of formal
enrollment; 3) SMOCs (Synchronous Massive Online Courses): Open-access
online course that allows for unlimited participation but requires
students to be "present" at the same time (synchronously); 4) SSOCs
(Synchronous Private Online Courses): Online course that only offers a
limited number of places and requires students to be "present" at the
same time (synchronously).
Paced models are a familiar mode as they are used almost
exclusively in campus based schools. Institutes that offer both distance
and campus programs usually use paced models as teacher workload,
student semester planning, tuition deadlines, exam schedules and other
administrative details can be synchronized with campus delivery. Student
familiarity and the pressure of deadlines encourages students to
readily adapt to and usually succeed in paced models. However, student
freedom is sacrificed as a common pace is often too fast for some
students and too slow for others. In addition life events, professional
or family responsibilities can interfere with a students capability to
complete tasks to an external schedule. Finally, paced models allows
students to readily form communities of inquiry and to engage in collaborative work.
Self-paced courses maximize student freedom, as not only can
students commence studies on any date, but they can complete a course in
as little time as a few weeks or up to a year or longer. Students often
enroll in self-paced study when they are under pressure to complete
programs, have not been able to complete a scheduled course, need
additional courses or have pressure which precludes regular study for
any length of time. The self-paced nature of the programming, though is
an unfamiliar model for many students and can lead to excessive
procrastination resulting in course incompletion. Assessment of learning
can also be challenging as exams can be written on any day, making it
possible for students to share examination questions with resulting loss
of academic integrity. Finally, it is extremely challenging to organize
collaborative work activities, though some schools are developing cooperative models based upon networked and connectivist pedagogies, for use in self-paced programs.
Benefits
Distance
learning can expand access to education and training for both general
populace and businesses since its flexible scheduling structure lessens
the effects of the many time-constraints imposed by personal
responsibilities and commitments.
Devolving some activities off-site alleviates institutional capacity
constraints arising from the traditional demand on institutional
buildings and infrastructure.
Furthermore, there is the potential for increased access to more
experts in the field and to other students from diverse geographical,
social, cultural, economic, and experiential backgrounds.
As the population at large becomes more involved in lifelong learning
beyond the normal schooling age, institutions can benefit financially,
and adult learning business courses may be particularly lucrative. Distance education programs can act as a catalyst for institutional innovation and are at least as effective as face-to-face learning programs, especially if the instructor is knowledgeable and skilled.
Distance education can also provide a broader method of communication within the realm of education.
With the many tools and programs that technological advancements have
to offer, communication appears to increase in distance education
amongst students and their professors, as well as students and their
classmates. The distance educational increase in communication,
particularly communication amongst students and their classmates, is an
improvement that has been made to provide distance education students
with as many of the opportunities as possible as they would receive in
in-person education. The improvement being made in distance education is
growing in tandem with the constant technological advancements.
Present-day online communication allows students to associate with
accredited schools and programs throughout the world that are out of
reach for in-person learning. By having the opportunity to be involved
in global institutions via distance education, a diverse array of
thought is presented to students through communication with their
classmates. This is beneficial because students have the opportunity to
"combine new opinions with their own, and develop a solid foundation for
learning".
It has been shown through research that "as learners become aware of
the variations in interpretation and construction of meaning among a
range of people [they] construct an individual meaning", which can help
students become knowledgeable of a wide array of viewpoints in
education.
To increase the likelihood that students will build effective ties with
one another during the course, instructors should use similar
assignments for students across different locations to overcome the
influence of co-location on relationship building.
The high cost of education affects students in higher education,
to which distance education may be an alternative in order to provide
some relief.
Distance education has been a more cost-effective form of learning, and
can sometimes save students a significant amount of money as opposed to
traditional education.
Distance education may be able to help to save students a considerable
amount financially by removing the cost of transportation.
In addition, distance education may be able to save students from the
economic burden of high-priced course textbooks. Many textbooks are now
available as electronic textbooks, known as e-textbooks, which can offer
digital textbooks for a reduced price in comparison to traditional
textbooks. Also, the increasing improvements in technology have resulted
in many school libraries having a partnership with digital publishers
that offer course materials for free, which can help students
significantly with educational costs.
Within the class, students are able to learn in ways that
traditional classrooms would not be able to provide. It is able to
promote good learning experiences and therefore, allow students to
obtain higher satisfaction with their online learning.
For example, students can review their lessons more than once according
to their need. Students can then manipulate the coursework to fit their
learning by focusing more on their weaker topics while breezing through
concepts that they already have or can easily grasp. When course design and the learning environment are at their optimal conditions, distance education can lead students to higher satisfaction with their learning experiences.
Studies have shown that high satisfaction correlates to increased
learning. For those in a healthcare or mental health distance learning
program, online-based interactions have the potential to foster deeper
reflections and discussions of client issues
as well as a quicker response to client issues, since supervision
happens on a regular basis and is not limited to a weekly supervision
meeting.
This also may contribute to the students feeling a greater sense of
support, since they have ongoing and regular access to their instructors
and other students.
Distance learning may enable students who are unable to attend a traditional school setting, due to disability or illness such as decreased mobility and immune system suppression, to get a good education. Children who are sick or are unable to attend classes are able to attend them in "person" through the use of robot
proxies. This helps the students have experiences of the classroom and
social interaction that they are unable to receive at home or the
hospital, while still keeping them in a safe learning environment. Over
the last few years more students are entering safely back into the classroom thanks to the help of robots. An article from the New York Times, "A Swiveling Proxy Will Even Wear a Tutu", explains the positive impact of virtual learning in the classroom, and another that explains how even a simple, stationary telepresence robot can help.
Distance education may provide equal access regardless of socioeconomic
status or income, area of residence, gender, race, age, or cost per
student. Applying universal design
strategies to distance learning courses as they are being developed
(rather than instituting accommodations for specific students on an
as-needed basis) can increase the accessibility of such courses to students with a range of abilities, disabilities, learning styles, and native languages.
Distance education graduates, who would never have been associated with
the school under a traditional system, may donate money to the school.
Distance learning may also offer a final opportunity for
adolescents that are no longer permitted in the general education
population due to behavior disorders. Instead of these students having
no other academic opportunities, they may continue their education from
their homes and earn their diplomas, offering them another chance to be
an integral part of society.
Distance learning offers individuals a unique opportunity to
benefit from the expertise and resources of the best universities
currently available. Students have the ability to collaborate, share,
question, infer, and suggest new methods and techniques for continuous
improvement of the content. The ability to complete a course at a pace
that is appropriate for each individual is the most effective manner to
learn given the personal demands on time and schedule. Self-paced distance learning on a mobile device, such is a smartphone, provides maximum flexibility and capability.
Criticism
Barriers to effective distance education include obstacles such as domestic distractions and unreliable technology, as well as students' program costs, adequate contact with teachers and support services, and a need for more experience.
Some students attempt to participate in distance education
without proper training with the tools needed to be successful in the
program. Students must be provided with training opportunities (if
needed) on each tool that is used throughout the program. The lack of
advanced technology skills can lead to an unsuccessful experience.
Schools have a responsibility to adopt a proactive policy for managing
technology barriers.
Time management skills and self-discipline in distance education is
just as important as complete knowledge of the software and tools being
used for learning.
The results of a study of Washington state community college
students showed that distance learning students tended to drop out more
often than their traditional counterparts due to difficulties in
language, time management, and study skills.
According to Dr. Pankaj Singhm, director of Nims University,
"distance learning benefits may outweigh the disadvantages for students
in such a technology-driven society; however before indulging into use
of educational technology
a few more disadvantages should be considered." He describes that over
multiple years, "all of the obstacles have been overcome and the world
environment for distance education continues to improve." Dr. Pankaj
Singhm also claims there is a debate to distance education stating, "due
to a lack of direct face-to-face social interaction. However, as more
people become used to personal and social interaction online (for
example dating, chat rooms, shopping, or blogging), it is becoming
easier for learners to both project themselves and socialize with
others. This is an obstacle that has dissipated."
Not all courses required to complete a degree may be offered
online. Health care profession programs in particular, require some sort
of patient interaction through field work before a student may
graduate.
Studies have also shown that students pursuing a medical professional
graduate degree who are participating in distance education courses,
favor face to face communication over professor-mediated chat rooms
and/or independent studies. However, this is little correlation between
student performance when comparing the previous different distance
learning strategies.
There is a theoretical problem about the application of
traditional teaching methods to online courses because online courses
may have no upper size limit. Daniel Barwick
noted that there is no evidence that large class size is always worse
or that small class size is always better, although a negative link has
been established between certain types of instruction in large classes
and learning outcomes; he argued that higher education has not made a
sufficient effort to experiment with a variety of instructional methods
to determine whether large class size is always negatively correlated
with a reduction in learning outcomes. Early proponents of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC)s
saw them as just the type of experiment that Barwick had pointed out
was lacking in higher education, although Barwick himself has never
advocated for MOOCs.
There may also be institutional challenges. Distance learning is
new enough that it may be a challenge to gain support for these programs
in a traditional brick-and-mortar academic learning environment. Furthermore, it may be more difficult for the instructor to organize and plan a distance learning program, especially since many are new programs and their organizational needs are different from a traditional learning program.
Additionally, though distance education offers industrial
countries the opportunity to become globally informed, there are still
negative sides to it. Hellman states that "These include its cost and
capital intensiveness, time constraints and other pressures on
instructors, the isolation of students from instructors and their peers,
instructors’ enormous difficulty in adequately evaluating students they
never meet face-to-face, and drop-out rates far higher than in
classroom-based courses."
A more complex challenge of distance education relates to
cultural differences between student and teachers and among students.
Distance programmes tend to be more diverse as they could go beyond the
geographical borders of regions, countries, and continents, and cross
the cultural borders that may exist with respect to race, gender, and
religion. That requires a proper understanding and awareness of the
norms, differences, preconceptions and potential conflicting issues.
Educational technology
The modern use of electronic educational technology (also called e-learning) facilitates distance learning and independent learning by the extensive use of information and communications technology (ICT),
replacing traditional content delivery by postal correspondence.
Instruction can be synchronous and asynchronous online communication in
an interactive learning environment or virtual communities, in lieu of a
physical classroom. "The focus is shifted to the education transaction
in the form of virtual community of learners sustainable across time."
One of the most significant issues encountered in the mainstream
correspondence model of distance education is transactional distance,
which results from the lack of appropriate communication between learner
and teacher. This gap has been observed to become wider if there is no
communication between the learner and teacher and has direct
implications over the learning process and future endeavors in distance
education. Distance education providers began to introduce various
strategies, techniques, and procedures to increase the amount of
interaction between learner and teacher. These measures e.g. more
frequent face-to-face tutorials, increased use of information and
communication technologies including teleconferencing and the Internet,
were designed to close the gap in transactional distance.
Credentials
Online credentials for learning are digital credentials that are
offered in place of traditional paper credentials for a skill or
educational achievement. Directly linked to the accelerated development
of internet communication technologies, the development of digital badges, electronic passports and massive open online courses (MOOCs)
have a very direct bearing on our understanding of learning,
recognition and levels as they pose a direct challenge to the status
quo. It is useful to distinguish between three forms of online
credentials: Test-based credentials, online badges, and online
certificates.
