Distance education: a reassessment for the 1980s

Abstract

Although the 1970s was a period of great development in distance education few innovations turned out quite as expected. The Open University has been successful but attempts to copy it have failed. The industrial economics of teaching at a distance place restraints on the provision of support services and require a new form of educational management. The rules of effective instruction are better known but ensuring their application is still a problem. TV has been a disappointment while print has undergone a renaissance thanks to computerized text‐processing. The computer has been crucial to the organization of distance education and, in its contemporary miniaturized form, will soon be part of the instructional process. An analysis of student pacing must address both philosophical and practical issues and the same is true of increasing the interactive components of distance education. Earlier concentration on course design has given way to a greater interest in helping the student plan his education and acquire general study skills. A look forward to the 1980s suggests continued growth in distance education with the private sector best placed to respond to the new opportunities. Both authors were formerly members of Athabasca University.