OpenCourseWare (OCW) are course lessons created at universities and published for free via the Internet.
OCW projects first appeared in the late 1990s, and after gaining
traction in Europe and then the United States have become a worldwide
means of delivering educational content.
MIT's reasoning behind OCW was to "enhance human learning worldwide by the availability of a web of knowledge".
MIT also stated that it would allow students (including, but not
limited to, its own) to become better prepared for classes so that they
may be more engaged during a class. Since then, a number of universities
have created OCW, some of which have been funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Principles
According to the website of the OCW Consortium, an OCW project:
is a free and open digital publication of high quality educational materials, organized as courses.
is available for use and adaptation under an open license, such as certain Creative Commons licenses.
does not typically provide certification or access to faculty.
edX
Ten years after the US debut of OCW, in 2012 MIT and Harvard University announced the formation of edX, a massive open online course
(MOOC) platform to offer online university-level courses in a wide
range of disciplines to a worldwide audience at no charge. This new
initiative was based on MIT's "MITx" project, announced in 2011, and
extends the concepts of OCW by offering more structured formal courses
to online students, including in some cases the possibility of earning academic credit
or certificates based on supervised examinations. A major new feature
of the edX platform is the ability for students to interact with each
other and with teachers in online forums. In some cases, students will
help evaluate each other's work, and may even participate in some of the
teaching online.
In addition, edX is being used as an experimental research
platform to support and evaluate a variety of other new concepts in
online learning.
Problems
A
problem is that the creation and maintenance of comprehensive OCW
requires substantial initial and ongoing investments of human labor.
Effective translation into other languages and cultural contexts
requires even more investment by knowledgeable personnel. This is one
of the reasons why English is still the dominant language, and fewer
open courseware options are available in other languages. The OCW platform SlideWiki addresses these issues through a crowdsourcing approach.
Americas
Colombia
Universidad Icesi, OpenCourseWare de la Universidad Icesi
OpenCourseWare, originally initiated by MIT and the Hewlett Foundation, came to China in September, 2003, when MIT and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) joined together with Beijing Jiaotong University to organize an OpenCourseWare conference in Beijing. As a result of this conference, 12 universities
petitioned the government to institute a program of OpenCourseWare in
China. This group included some of the most prestigious universities in
China, as well as the Central Radio and Television University, which is China’s central open university, with more than 2 million students.
As a result of this petition, the Chinese government instituted the CORE (China Open Resources for Education) to promote the OpenCourseWare in Chinese Universities, with Fun-Den Wang (the head of IETF) as chairman. The CORE is an NGO supported by Hewlett Foundation,
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and other foundations. According
to CORE's website, it has nearly 100 Chinese universities as members,
including the most prestigious universities in China, such as Tsinghua University, Peking University and Shanghai Jiaotong University.
This organization organized volunteers to translate foreign
OpenCourseWare, mainly MIT OpenCourseWare into Chinese and to promote
the application of OpenCourseWare in Chinese universities. In February
2008, 347 courses had been translated into Chinese and 245 of them were
used by 200 professors in courses involving a total of 8,000 students.
It also tried to translate some Chinese courses into English, but the
number is not too much and some are only title translated.
There have also been produced 148 comparative studies comparing MIT
curriculum with Chinese curriculum using the MIT OpenCourseWare
material.
CORE's offices are hosted within the China Central Radio and Television
University, and they receive partial funding from the IETF and the Hewlett foundation.
They also host annual conferences on open education, and the 2008
conference was co-located with the international OpenCourseWare
Consortium conference, which brought a large amount of foreign
participants.[23] The website has been offline since 2013.
But before the OpenCourseWare conference in Beijing and the establishment of CORE, at April 8, 2003, the Ministry of Education had published a policy to launch the China Quality Course (精品课程) program. This program accepts applications for university lecturers that wish to put their courses online, and gives grants of between $10,000 – 15,000 CAD
per course that is put online, and made available free of charge to the
general public (ibid.). The most prestigious award is for the “national
level CQOCW”, then there is “provincial level” and “school level”. From
2003 to 2010, there have produced 3862 courses at the national level by
746 universities.
According to the official website for the China Quality Course, the
total number of the courses available online is more than 20,000.
These typically include syllabus, course notes, overheads, assignments,
and in many cases audio or video of the entire lectures.
The scale of this project has also spurred a large research activity,
and over 3,000 journal articles have been written in Chinese about the
topic of OpenCourseWare.
Cul-studies.com provides culture studies and teaching in China
under a Creative commons license run by Contemporary Culture Studies
(CCCS) of the Shanghai University.
Guoxue is working on the digitization and promotion of ancient Chinese books.
The National Science Library Institutional Repository contains journals and conference proceedings.
The Social Learn Lab Community contains creative commons materials. Its wiki is very inactive.
The Songshuhui Community promotes science in china under the creative commons.
The Chinese journal of lung cancer is published under a creative commons license.
China Quality Course
China Quality Course is a program launched by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China since April 8, 2003.
The website allows for ranking of courses. From 2003 to 2010, 3862 courses had been produced at the national level by 746 universities. According to the official website for the China Quality Course, the total number of courses available online is more than 20,000.
It lists no license or copyright on the website.
Malaysia
University
of Malaya (UM) is the foremost and premier Research University (RU) in
Malaysia. It is a multidisciplinary RU that has more than 27,000
students and 1700 academic staff with 17 faculties and research centres
that covers the whole spectrum of learning from the Arts, Sciences and
Humanities. The university's beginning at the Kuala Lumpur campus dates
back to 1959 and thus far has a huge alumni of over 100,000, among them
renowned and illustrious personalities and leaders in various fields. http://www.oeconsortium.org/members/view/427/
Pakistan
The Virtual University
(Urdu:ورچوئل یونیورسٹی; Vu), is a public university located in urban
area of Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Its additional campus is also located
in residential area of Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.
Established in 2002 by the Government of Pakistan to promote
distance education in modern information and communication sciences as
its primary objectives, the university is noted for its online lectures
and broadcasting rigorous programs regardless of their students'
physical locations. The university offers undergraduate and
post-graduate courses in business administration, economics, computer
science, and information technology. Due to its heavy reliance on
serving lectures through the internet, Pakistani students residing
overseas in several other countries of the region are also enrolled in
the University's programs.
India
The National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL)
is a Government of India sponsored collaborative educational programme.
By developing curriculum-based video and web courses the programme aims
to enhance the quality of engineering education in India. It is being
jointly carried out by 7 IITs and IISc Bangalore and is funded by the
Ministry of Human Resources Development of the Government of India.
Flexilearn is a very useful open course portal. It was initiated by Indira Gandhi National Open University,
and apart from providing free course materials, flexilearn also
provides opportunities to enroll oneself for a course and appear for
exam conducted by university and thereby get certification.
Japan
OpenCourseWare originally initiated by MIT and the Hewlett Foundation, was introduced and adopted in Japan.
In 2002, researchers from the National Institute of Multimedia Education (NIME) and Tokyo Institute of Technology
(Tokyo Tech) studied the MIT OpenCourseWare, leading them to develop an
OCW pilot plan with 50 courses at Tokyo Institute of Technology in
September.
Later, in July 2004, MIT gave a lecture about MIT OpenCourseWare at
Tokyo Tech that prompted the first meeting of the Japan OCW Alliance.
The meeting was held with four Japanese universities that had mainly
been recruited through the efforts of MIT professor Miyagawa, and his
personal contacts. In one case, the connection was the former president
of the University of Tokyo being an acquaintance of Charles Vest, the former president of MIT.
In 2006, the OCW International Conference was held at Kyoto University wherein the Japanese OCW Association was reorganized into the Japan OCW Consortium. At that time, Japan OCW Consortium had over 600 courses; currently they have 18 university members, including the United Nations University
(JOCW, n.d.). On Japanese university campuses there are few experts in
content production, which makes it difficult to get support locally, and
many of the universities have had to outsource their production of OCW.
In example, the University of Tokyo has had to mainly employ students
to create OCW.
The motivation for joining the OCW movement seems to be to create
positive change among Japanese universities, including modernizing
presentation style among lecturers, as well as sharing learning
material.
Japanese researchers have been particularly interested in the technical
aspects of OCW, for example in creating semantic search engines. There
is currently a growing interest for Open Educational Resources (OER)
among Japanese universities, and more universities are expected to join
the consortium.
“In order to become an integral institution that contributes to
OER, the JOCW Consortium needs to forge solidarity among the member
universities and build a rational for OER on its own, different from
that of MIT, which would support the international deployment of
Japanese universities and also Japanese style e-Learning.”
In the United Arab Emirates, a discussion, led by Dr. Linzi J. Kemp, American University of Sharjah,
has begun about sharing teaching and learning materials (‘open course
ware’) through a community of educators and practitioners in the GCC.
There is growing availability of high quality and free open access
materials shared between universities e.g. MIT (USA). Resource sharing
also takes place on the ‘Open University (UK), OpenLearn’ platform. Kemp
(2013) proposes that teaching and learning will be enhanced when
teachers across institutions of higher education work together to bring
their shared knowledge into classrooms. Furthermore, when the platform
is opened up to include practitioners - e.g. employers - then the
relationship with the industry will further ensure that the teaching and
learning is available and beneficial for a wider community.
Lifelong learning is the "ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated" pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons. Therefore, it not only enhances social inclusion, active citizenship, and personal development, but also self-sustainability, as well as competitiveness and employability.
In some contexts, the term "lifelong learning" evolved from the
term "life-long learners", created by Leslie Watkins and used by
Professor Clint Taylor (CSULA) and Superintendent
for the Temple City Unified School District's mission statement in
1993, the term recognizes that learning is not confined to childhood or
the classroom but takes place throughout life and in a range of
situations.
In other contexts, the term "lifelong learning" evolved organically. The first lifelong learning institute began at The New School for Social Research (now New School University)
in 1962 as an experiment in "learning in retirement". Later, after
similar groups formed across the United States, many chose the name
"lifelong learning institute" to be inclusive of nonretired persons in
the same age range.
During the last fifty years, constant scientific and
technological innovation and change has had profound effects on how
learning is understood. Learning can no longer be divided into a place
and time to acquire knowledge (school) and a place and time to apply the
knowledge acquired (the workplace).
Instead, learning can be seen as something that takes place on an
ongoing basis from our daily interactions with others and with the world
around us. It can create and shapeshift into the form of formal learning or informal learning, or self-directed learning. Allen Tough (1979), Canadian educator and researcher, asserts that almost 70% of learning projects are self-planned.
Links to theory
Two theories of particular relevance when considering lifelong learning are cognitivism and constructivism. Cognitivism, most notably Gestalt theory,
speaks of learning as making sense of the relationship between what is
old and what is new. Similarly, Constructivist theory states that
"knowledge is not passively received from the world or from
authoritative sources but constructed by individuals or groups making
sense of their experiential worlds". Constructivism lends itself well to Lifelong learning as it brings together learning from many different sources including life experiences.
Learning economy
Lifelong
learning is being recognized by traditional colleges and universities
as valid in addition to degree attainment. Some learning is accomplished
in segments or interest categories and can still be valuable to the
individual and community. The economic impact of educational
institutions at all levels will remain significant as individuals
continue formal studies and pursue interest-based subjects. Institutions
produce educated citizens who buy goods and services in the community
and the education facilities and personnel generate economic activity
during the operations and institutional activities. Similar to health
facilities, educational institutions are among the top employers in many
cities and towns of the world. Whether brick-and-mortar or distance education
institutions, there is a great economic impact worldwide from learning,
including lifelong learning, for all age groups. The lifelong learners,
including persons with academic or professional credentials, tend to
find higher-paying occupations, leaving monetary, cultural, and
entrepreneurial impressions on communities, according to educator
Cassandra B. Whyte.
Contexts
Although the term is widely used in a variety of contexts, its meaning is often unclear. A learning approach that can be used to define lifelong learning is heutagogy.
There are several established contexts for lifelong learning beyond traditional "brick and mortar" schooling:
Home schooling involves learning to learn or the development of informal learning patterns
Adult education or the acquisition of formal qualifications or work and leisure skills later in life
Lifelong learning institutes,
which are groups over 50 years of age which meet for noncredit
college-level study for intellectual challenge and social enjoyment
Knowledge work, which includes professional development and on-the-job training
Personal learning environments or self-directed learning using a range of sources and tools including online applications
E-learning is available at most colleges and universities or to
individuals learning independently. There are even online courses being
offered for free by many institutions.
One new (2008 and beyond) expression of lifelong learning is the massive open online course
(a MOOC), in which a teacher or team offers a syllabus and some
direction for the participation of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of
learners. Most MOOCs do not offer typical "credit" for courses taken,
which is why they are interesting and useful examples of lifelong
learning.
Emerging technologies
Lifelong
learning is defined as "all learning activity undertaken throughout
life, with the aim of improving knowledge, skills and competences within
a personal, civic, social and/or employment-related perspective".
It is often considered learning that occurs after the formal education
years of childhood (where learning is instructor-driven—pedagogical) and
into adulthood (where the learning is
individually-driven—andragogical). It is sought out naturally through
life experiences as the learner seeks to gain knowledge for professional
or personal reasons.'Knowledge results from the combination of grasping
experience and transforming it' (Kolb 1984: 41).
The concept of lifelong learning has become of vital importance with the
emergence of new technologies that change how we receive and gather
information, collaborate with others, and communicate.
Assistive technology
As
technology rapidly changes, individuals must adapt and learn to meet
everyday demands. However, throughout life, an individual's functional
capacities may also change. Assistive technologies
are also important considerations under the umbrella of emerging
technology and lifelong learning. Access to informal and formal
learning opportunities for individuals with disabilities may be
dependent upon low and high tech assistive technology.
Web 2.0
The emergence of Web 2.0
technologies has great potential to support lifelong learning
endeavors, allowing for informal, just-in-time, day-to-day learning.
Constant change is emerging as the new normal. To thrive, organizations
and individuals must be able to adjust, and enhance their knowledge and
skills to meet evolving needs. This means the most important thing
someone can learn is how to learn. An understanding of web 2.0 tools is critical to keeping up with a changing world and the information explosion.
Workplace learning
Professions
typically recognize the importance of developing practitioners becoming
lifelong learners. Nowadays, formal training is only a beginning.
Knowledge accumulates at such a fast rate that one must continue to
learn to be effective (Williams, 2001). Many licensed professions
mandate that their members continue learning to maintain a license.
(Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007).
Having said this, what are the characteristics or skills that a
lifelong learner must develop. Reflective learning and critical
thinking can help a learner to become more self-reliant through learning
how to learn, thus making them better able to direct, manage, and
control their own learning process (Candy, 1990).
Sipe (1995) studied experimentally "open" teachers and found that they
valued self-directed learning, collaboration, reflection, and challenge;
risk taking in their learning was seen as an opportunity, not a threat.
Dunlap and Grabinger (2003) say that for higher education students to
be lifelong learners, they must develop a capacity for self-direction,
metacognition awareness, and a disposition toward learning (Merriam,
Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007).
Metacognition
While the study of metacognition originally gave educational psychologists
insights into what differentiated successful students from their less
successful peers, it is increasingly being used to inform teaching that
aims to make students more aware of their learning processes, and show
them how to regulate those processes for more effective learning
throughout their lives.
Educators can employ Cognitive Strategy Instruction (CSI)
as a means to help learners develop their metacognition. Again,
learners who are better equipped to create learning strategies for
themselves will have more success in achieving their cognitive goals.
As lifelong learning is "lifelong, lifewide, voluntary, and self-motivated"
learning to learn, that is, learning how to recognize learning
strategies, and monitor and evaluate learning, is a pre-condition for
lifelong learning. Metacognition is an essential first step in
developing lifelong learning.
Delors Report and the four pillars of learning
The Delors Report
proposed an integrated vision of education based on two key paradigms:
lifelong learning and the four pillars of learning. The report proposed a
holistic conceptual framework of learning, that of the 'four pillars of
learning'. It argued that formal education tends to emphasize the
acquisition of knowledge to the detriment of other types of learning
essential to sustaining human development. It stressed the need to think
of learning over the life course, and to address how everyone can
develop relevant skills, knowledge and attitudes for work, citizenship
and personal fulfillment. The four pillars of learning are:
Learning to know
Learning to do
Learning to be
Learning to live together
It is important to note that the four pillars of learning were
envisaged against the backdrop of the notion of 'lifelong learning',
itself an adaptation of the concept of 'lifelong education' as initially
conceptualized in the 1972 Faure publication Learning to Be.
In practice
In India and elsewhere, the "University of the Third Age"
(U3A) provides an example of the almost spontaneous emergence of
autonomous learning groups accessing the expertise of their own members
in the pursuit of knowledge and shared experience. No prior
qualifications and no subsequent certificates feature in this approach
to learning for its own sake and, as participants testify, engagement in
this type of learning in later life can indeed 'prolong active life'.
In Sweden the successful concept of study circles,
an idea launched almost a century ago, still represents a large portion
of the adult education provision. The concept has since spread, and for
instance, is a common practice in Finland as well. A study circle is
one of the most democratic forms of a learning environment that has been
created. There are no teachers and the group decides on what content
will be covered, scope will be used, as well as a delivery method.
Sometimes lifelong learning aims to provide educational
opportunities outside standard educational systems—which can be
cost-prohibitive, if available at all. On the other hand, formal
administrative units devoted to this discipline exist in a number of universities.
For example, the 'Academy of Lifelong Learning' is an administrative
unit within the University-wide 'Professional and Continuing Studies'
unit at the University of Delaware.
Another example is the Jagiellonian University Extension (Wszechnica
Uniwersytetu Jagiellonskiego), which is one of the most comprehensive
Polish centers for lifelong learning (open learning, organizational
learning, community learning).
In recent years, 'lifelong learning' has been adopted in the UK
as an umbrella term for post-compulsory education that falls outside of
the UK higher education system – further education, community education, work-based learning and similar voluntary, public sector and commercial settings.
Most colleges and universities in the United States encourage
lifelong learning to non-traditional students. Professional licensure
and certification courses are also offered at many universities, for
instance for teachers, social services providers, and other
professionals. Some colleges even enable adults to earn credit for the
college-level learning gained through work, volunteer and other
experiences.
Bangladesh Open University (BOU) has six schools and is offering 23 formal and 19 nonformal programs. The number of enrolled students in formal programs for 2016 was 433,413.
Most of the courses of BOU are for professional development and most of
the students are professional people who are getting scope to study in
flexible hours. BOU is the only public institution in the country that imparts education in distance mode.
In place of campus based teaching, this university uses technology
including electronic devices to reach people in different corners of the
country.
In Canada, the federal government's Lifelong Learning Plan allows Canadian residents to withdraw funds from their Registered Retirement Savings Plan
to help pay for lifelong learning, but the funds can only be used for
formal learning programs at designated educational institutions.
Priorities for lifelong and life-wide learning have different
priorities in different countries, some placing more emphasis on
economic development (towards a learning economy) and some on social development (towards a learning society). For example, the policies of China, Republic of Korea, Singapore and Malaysia promote lifelong learning in a human resource development (HRD) perspective. The governments of these countries have done much to foster HRD whilst encouraging entrepreneurship.
Impact on long-term economic growth
Mainstream
economic analysis has highlighted increased levels of primary and
secondary education as a key driver of long-term economic growth. Data
show that initial levels of educational attainment explain about half
the difference in growth rates between East Asia and sub- Saharan Africa
between 1965 and 2010. At the individual level, the knowledge and
skills workers acquire through education and training make them more
productive. Provision of good quality education can improve the
knowledge and skills of a whole population beyond what traditional or
informal systems can achieve. For business, educated and highly skilled
workers foster productivity gains and technological change, through
either innovation or imitation of processes developed elsewhere. At the
societal level, education expansion helps build social and institutional
capital, which has a strong impact on the investment climate and
growth; it also helps in building social trust, developing participatory
societies, strengthening the rule of law and supporting good
governance.
Implications for an aging society
According
to the Alzheimer's Society, it is estimated that more than a million
Canadians will suffer from Alzheimer's diseases by 2030. "Exercising the
brain may preserve it, forestalling mental decline" (Grady, 2012).
In North America—and presumably globally—to proactively curb potential
economic issues as the baby boomers continue to age, we need to look at
society through a lifelong learning lens. Consider community programs
to engage retirees and foster their cognitive health. Taking a proactive
approach to keep our elderly population engaged through learning and
their brains exercised as Grady described, the strain on the health care
system and not to mention the families of the elderly would be
lessened. The US Department of Health and Human Service published a
study that suggests that older people with a mild cognitive impairment
receive 8.5 hours more of care each week from their family and those
with a severe impairment received 41.5 more hours than those without a
cognitive impairment (USDHHS, 2007). Who pays for this?
As a society we are living longer—85 years for men and 90 years for
women—making cognitive health vitally important.
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 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 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 ExchequerIain 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.
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.
