The academic success of first-year students' learning in science faculties is by no means assured, especially in an Open Distance Learning setting with its limited number of face-to-face encounters between students and lecturers or tutors. Therefore, such encounters should be highly efficient in view of the considerable amount of knowledge…

Experience in Scotland shows that telephone tuition can be an effective means to bring remote students and tutors into direct contact. One-to-one tuition, conference call tuition, and loud-speaker tuition are discussed. Limitations and advantages of this medium are noted, and development across the United Kingdom is advocated. (AF)

This guide, which is aimed primarily at those responsible for providing learning opportunities within further education in England and Wales, deals with managing open learning. Addressed in the individual chapters of the guide are the following topics: the nature of open learning; the production of learning materials; the impact of open learning…