Editorial: Education across space and time: meeting the diverse needs of the distance learner

Abstract

As the higher education sector adapts to technological, social and political change, those involved in open and distance learning are finding that differences between distance and online learning are increasingly difficult to define; on-campus students may choose to study online, while external students may spend time on campus and online. At the same time, the affordances of network technologies, which allow extensive networked connections, have given rise to both open educational resources (OERs) and massively open online courses (MOOCs). These conditions also challenge the very nature of education, the value of the institution and the roles of both teachers and learners. This in turn places burdens on those responsible for the design of courses and those engaged with developing the profession and scholarship of teaching and learning. How therefore can we foster engaging and interactive learning with a dispersed and diverse population of students? How can we shift towards a learner-centred paradigm when institutional practices and physical infrastructures are geared towards teacher-centred delivery modes? How can we enable the social and connected features of technology when learning management systems can be restrictive and clumsy in their efforts to both manage the administration of education and provide flexible and collaborative learning opportunities? Perhaps, as others have suggested, we are at the tipping point. Will we see a new form of education emerge, or will educational institutions be overwhelmed with compliance, standards, administration and management practices that limit the potential of the individual student?