Education savings accounts (ESAs) are designed to provide families with greater flexibility in designing educational programs that meet the needs of their children outside of the public system. Through ESAs, state education funds that are allocated for a child to attend public school are transferred directly to the child's family to use for the…

Online education, when done well, combines the use of technology to provide feedback to a degree and intensity that replicates the tutorial system that Newman preferred. Well-moderated discussion boards, adaptive learning technology, rapid grading with resubmission, and collaborative documents can mimic a measure of the Oxbridge…

The UCF Libraries are continually developing new forms of library instruction to meet the needs of a growing student body with the same number of librarians. These efforts attempt to find the balance between impersonal online tutorials and time-intensive embedded librarianship. The pros and cons of each model employed at our growing university are…

UT (Universitas Terbuka), the open university in Indonesia, is one of the large universities in Indonesia that has more than 300,000 students. UT, as a distance learning education, has conducted online tutorial since 2001. The implementation of an effective and efficient online tutorial depends on three components: students, tutors, and supporting…

This article introduces a set of distance education astronomy laboratory exercises for use by college students and instructors and discusses first usage results. This General Astronomy Education Source exercise set contains eight two-week projects designed to guide students through both core content and mathematical applications of general…

Wawasan Open University (WOU) was established in 2007 with the sole aim of providing affordable and accessible higher education opportunities to working adults in the fields of business, technology, education and liberal studies. As part of its Open Distance Learning (ODL) delivery, WOU provides tutorial support for students every semester through…

As the American higher education paradigm shifts from a traditional classroom instruction model to a distributed learning model, academic libraries must update library instruction methods to allow for more flexible delivery of content. Distance students particularly need instructional content that can be accessed anywhere, at any time. This…

Evaluation of a distance learning nursing program that used problem-based learning tutorials shows it resulted in both student achievement and enjoyment. Results demonstrated the importance of well-written and accessible learning materials, realistic goals, and allowance for the learning curve of tutors. (SK)

For online mathematics instructors, synchronous communication can be a challenge due to the need for specialized symbols, graphics, or notations to explain key concepts. While software tools exist to support such communication, they can often be cumbersome and time-consuming for users to adopt in online exchanges. As one way of addressing this…

This paper addresses the practice and experience of Universitas Terbuka (UT) in the provision of learning support services for students in a large-scale distance education system. The UT, which has a network of 37 regional offices and participating institutions, has challenges to provide and manage effective learning support system for more than…

The "ILIAS" learning management system (LMS) was evaluated, following its favourable rating in an independent evaluation study of open source software (OSS) products. The current review found "ILIAS" to have numerous features of value to distance education (DE) students and teachers, as well as problems for consideration in the…

This preliminary report describes part of NKI-Skolen's planned contribution to a cooperative study on student non-start and early withdrawals in correspondence education, which was created by the Norwegian Association of Correspondence Schools. A project is explained which will examine the organization of the initial phases of a student's…

Describes an evaluative study conducted at the Universitas Terbuka (Indonesia) that examined the role of face-to-face tutorials as an optional supplement to other instructional materials at a distance education institution. Attitudes, characteristics, and roles of the tutors are examined, and student attitudes are briefly discussed. (21…

The reasons that the current tutorial system (CTS) does not produce significant effects include the budgets and policies of schools, the greater independence of students, and the infrequent interaction of tutors with students. To reduce the deficiencies of the current tutorial system, this paper proposes a network tutorial system (NTS) and…

A pilot project at the University of Ulster (Northern Ireland) used the CAUCUS computer conferencing system on the CAMPUS 2000 education network to train teachers to assess young adults with severe learning difficulties. Despite problems with student attrition and system failure, computer conferencing was felt to be a useful medium for providing…