| This study was designed to provide course developers with guidelines that might be used for developing distance education courses. Generally, the consensus was that there would be considerable advantage for course developers to be guided by course development guidelines when developing courses. In terms of detail it has been suggested that development and implementation of distance education courses might proceed on the basis of these guidelines: (1) Distance education courses should predominantly be print-based, but should make use of other technologies, for example, facsimile, computers, teleconferencing etc. (2) The need to supplement or support print-based material with other technologies obviates the need for a multi-media approach to course delivery, and where necessary this should be done. (3) Developers should have a clear sense of both the course, for example, its objectives, as well as the characteristics of the targeted learner population, for example, their age, educational level, entry level skills and educational needs. (4) In developing and choosing course materials, selection criteria should ensure that (i) materials are free from gender, ethnic and racial bias (ii) readability of the printed materials matches the learner's reading level (iii) that the course content and learning activities/exercises should be designed to guide and teach the learner. (5) Access to library resources, particularly textbooks was deemed very important and could be facilitated by the use of technologies, such as fax, telephones and the mailing services. (6) In addition to the library service, student support services could embrace tutoring, counseling, telephone contact with the tutors etc. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
