Open learning is primarily a goal, or an educational policy. An essential characteristic of open learning is the removal of barriers to learning. This means no prior qualifications to study, and for students with disabilities, a determined effort to provide education in a suitable form that overcomes the disability (for example, audio tapes for students who are visually impaired). Ideally, no-one should be denied access to an open learning program.
Defining open learning, flexible learning, online/virtual learning and distance education Although the four terms are often used to mean the same thing, there are significant differences. Open learning Open learning is primarily a goal, or an educational policy. An essential characteristic of open learning is the removal of barriers to learning. This means no prior qualifications to study, and for students with disabilities, a determined effort to provide education in a suitable form that overcomes the disability (for example, audio tapes for students who are visually impaired). Ideally, no-one should be denied access to an open learning program. Thus open learning must be scalable as well as flexible. Open-ness has particular implications for the use of technology. If no-one is to be denied access, then technologies that are available to everyone need to be used. More recently, the move to open content has widened the meaning of open learning. The open content movement would like to see all digital learning materials available free of charge to anyone with access to the Internet (see the Capetown Open Education declaration) Distance education Distance education on the other hand is less a philosophy and more a method of education. Students can study in their own time, at the place of their choice (home, work or learning centre), and without face-to-face contact with a teacher. Technology is a critical element of distance education. However, distance education programs may not be open. That is certainly the case at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Students who wish to take distance courses and receive a UBC degree must meet UBC’s admission requirements (which are set very high), and take the necessary course pre-requisites. For undergraduate education, at least half the program must be done ‘in residence’, that is, by taking face-to-face classes on campus. Thus in practice students who live out of province or in foreign countries cannot obtain a UBC undergraduate degree wholly at a distance. If an institution is deliberately selective in its students, it has more flexibility with regard to choice of technology for distance education. It can for instance require all students who wish to take a distance education program to have their own computer. It cannot do that if its mandate is to be open to all students. Distance is more likely to be psychological or social, rather than geographical, in most cases. For instance, the vast majority of UBC undergraduate distance education students are not truly distant. The majority (83 per cent) lives in the Greater Vancouver Region, and almost half within the City of Vancouver. Only six per cent of the undergraduate enrolments in 1999/2000 were from outside the province (because of the residential requirement). On the other hand, two thirds of UBC’s distance students (67 per cent) were working. The main reason for most UBC students taking distance courses is the flexibility they provide, given the work and family commitments of students and the difficulty caused by timetable conflicts for face-to-face classes. Only 17 per cent gave reasons to do with distance or travel (UBC Distance Education and Technology, 2001). Flexible learning Flexible learning is the provision of learning in a flexible manner, built around the geographical, social and time constraints of individual learners, rather than those of an educational institution. Flexible learning may include distance education, but it also may include delivering face-to-face training in the workplace or opening the campus longer hours or organizing weekend or summer schools. Like distance education, it is more of a method than a philosophy, although like distance education, it is often associated with increased access and hence more open-ness. Online/virtual learning Online learning may be fully ‘at a distance’ or ‘blended’, i.e. combined with face-to-face teaching or other technologies such as print (see What is e-learning? Differences and similarities Open, distance, flexible and online learning are rarely found in their ‘purest’ forms. No teaching system is completely open (minimum levels of literacy are required, for instance), and few students ever study in complete isolation. Even fully online courses may encourage students to meet face-to-face for short periods, with or without an instructor, and most fully online courses supplement the online study with print readings such as text books. Thus there are degrees of open-ness, ‘distance’, flexibility, and ‘virtuality.’. Although open and flexible learning and distance education and online learning mean different things, the one thing they all have in common is an attempt to provide alternative means of high quality education or training for those who either cannot take conventional, campus-based programs, or choose not to. For another definition of distance education (especially in development) see Commonwealth of Learning The impact of technology on the organization of distance education Distance education has gone through several stages of development. Taylor (1999) has proposed five generations of distance education: – correspondence education; – integrated use of multiple, one-way media such as print, broadcasting or recorded media such as video-cassettes; – two-way, synchronous tele-learning using audio or video-conferencing; – flexible learning based on asynchronous online learning combined with online interactive multimedia; – intelligent flexible learning, which adds a high degree of automation and student control to asynchronous online learning and interactive multimedia. The progression through these stages of development has been driven mainly by changes in technology and educational theory. The first generation is characterized by the predominant use of a single technology, and lack of direct student interaction with the teacher originating the instruction. Correspondence education is a typical form of first generation distance education, although educational broadcasting is another version. Correspondence education makes heavy use of standard text books, and the use of a contracted correspondence tutor, who is not the originator of the learning material, and often works for a commercial company. Students however take examinations from accredited institutions. Second generation distance education is characterized by a deliberately integrated multiple-media approach, with learning materials specifically designed for study at a distance, but with two-way communication still mediated by a third person (a tutor, rather than the originator of the teaching material). Autonomous distance teaching universities, such as the British Open University, are examples of second generation distance education. Second generation distance education is based on specially designed correspondence texts, combined with standard text books and collections of readings from academic journals, and supported by television and/or radio programming. Open universities and distance education units in dual-mode institutions (institutions that are campus-based but also offer some of their programs at a distance) have been associated more with systems-based and behaviourist or cognitive-science approaches to learning. These may be considered more teacher-focused and ‘industrialized’, in that all students get the same material, resulting in considerable economies of scale. Taylor’s third generation (two-way, synchronous tele-learning using audio or video-conferencing) is based on replicating as far as possible the classroom model through the use of synchronous interactive technologies, such as video-conferencing, and relies heavily on lecturing and questions. This model of distance education is often used by multi-campus institutions, because it saves travel time between campuses for instructors. However, it provides relatively small economies of scale, little flexibility for learners, because they still have to attend a campus at a set time, and the average cost per student tends to be high. Nevertheless synchronous teleconferencing is popular because instructors do not have to change or adapt their classroom teaching methods to any extent. Taylor’s fourth generation is flexible learning based on asynchronous communication through the Internet and the World Wide Web (online learning). This model enables increased student-teacher and student-student interaction at a distance, collaborative group work, flexibility for learners to study anywhere at any time, and economies of scope, in that courses for relatively small numbers can be developed without high start-up costs. However, to exploit the educational advantages and to control costs, the design and delivery of asynchronous teaching must be different from both traditional approaches to classroom teaching and the large-scale design of open university programs. Kaufman (1989) characterizes this as a progressive increase in learner control, opportunities for dialogue, and emphasis on thinking skills rather than mere comprehension. Taylor’s fifth generation is still experimental, based on a heavy automation of learning, and applies mainly to his own institution (University of Southern Queensland). A more plausible fifth generation is distance education based on the use of Web 2.0 tools that allow learners to control access to learning, through social software, virtual worlds and multimedia tools such as YouTube. Although these are useful classifications of the technological and educational development of distance education, the situation on the ground at any one time is much more complex. In an extensive analysis of the impact of technology on distance education organizations in Technology, e-Learning and Distance Education I identified six main types of distance teaching organizations in operation in 2003: – public autonomous distance education institutions – dual-mode institutions – for-profit distance education institutions – partnerships and consortia – workplace training organizations – virtual schools.