Distance Education

Distance education is a method of teaching in which the students are not required to be physically present at a specific location or time during the term. Instead, teachers and students communicate by exchanging printed or electronic media, or through technology that allows them to communicate in real time. Physical presence is normally optional for tutorials and normally only mandatory for examinations.

Most often, regular mail is used to send written material, videos, audiotapes, and CD-ROMs to the student and to turn in the exercises. E-mail, the Web, and video conferencing over broadband network connections are used as well. In some countries, the material is supplemented by television and radio programming. To compete with the conventional sector, course material must be of very high quality and completeness, and will use modern technologies such as educational animation.

Full time or part-time study is possible, but most students choose part-time study. Research study is possible as well. Distance education is offered at all levels, but is most frequently an option for university-level studies. A form of educational program which is similar to this but which requires some amount of presence during the year is a low-residency program.

Distance education programs are sometimes called correspondence courses, an older term that originated in nineteenth-century vocational education programs that were conducted through postal mail. This term has been largely replaced by distance education, and expanded to encompass more sophisticated technologies. The first subject taught by correspondence was the Pitman Shorthand, a tool of stenography. Primary and secondary education programs were also widely available by correspondence, usually for children living in remote areas.

One of the oldest distance education universities is the University of South Africa, which has been offering DE courses since 1946. The largest distance education university in the United Kingdom is the Open University founded 1969. In Germany the FernUniversität in Hagen was founded 1974. There are now many similar institutions around the world and these are listed below.

There are many private and public, non-profit and for-profit institutions offering courses and degree programs through distance education. Levels of accreditation vary; some institutions offering distance education in the United States have received little outside oversight, and some may be fraudulent diploma mills. In many other jurisdictions, an insitution may not use the term "University" without accreditation and authorisation, normally by the national government.

External distance education links

GetEducated.com: Online degree clearinghouse for accredited colleges and universities(USA)

Educational Pathways: Paid-subscription Newsletter Covering Distance Learning and Teaching in Higher Education

Distance Learning: The Distance Learning Network

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