Creating a Large-scale, Third Generation, Distance Education Course

T171 'You, your computer and the Net' is a large-scale distance education course produced at the Open University in the UK. It offers an introduction to computers and the Internet aimed at a wide audience. The course is tutored entirely online and is delivered via the World Wide Web. This paper outlines the course team's strategy for dealing with a number of issues that arose as a result of the aims of producing such a course which maintained the traditional quality of Open University material, whilst being adapted for a new presentation model. These issues included developing appropriate student skills, maintaining quality control, facilitating easy updating of material, ensuring student interaction with the material, and making the material accessible and meaningful to a broad range of students. The manner in which each of these issues has been addressed is outlined. The course structure is a modular one based around accessible set texts, with wrap around academic material on the course web site. The course was piloted in 1999 with 900 students, and demand for the course has been very high, with some 9000 students enrolling for the course in 2000.