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in distance teaching: the UK Open University, the University of the Highlands and
Islands Millennium Institute (UHI), and Anadolu University in Turkey. There was
therefore a need for course design solutions that could be networked between differ-
ent campuses and which could be easily adapted to suit very different educational
contexts of the various partner cultures.
Each of the partner universities practice different forms and levels of distance
or distributed education and are at very different stages in the evolution of their
design, delivery, and student support mechanisms. UHI is distributed in the sense
that it is composed of 13 academic partners—colleges and research centres spread
over a very wide geographical area of northern Scotland. Various combinations
of technologies are used to deliver courses to students so that they do not need
to physically re-locate in order to access higher education. Furthermore, staff can
provide tuition to learners beyond the confines of the “home” campuses. The UK
Open University can be called distributed in the sense that it too uses technology
to deliver courses to students spread over the whole United Kingdom and beyond.
Online and face-to-face tutorials are held to support students in their study of either
print-based or web-based course materials. Anadolu is the largest distance teach-
ing university in Turkey with over 1 million undergraduates and a strong distance
learning programme.
Blended learning is another term which is often used to refer to practices similar
to distributed education. Blended learning usually implies a combination of online
and face-to-face teaching (Fig. 13.1). Distributed education usually implies a sepa-
ration either in time or in space between the teacher and the taught and is normally
regarded as utilising a range of different media resources for course delivery and
communications between learners and tutorial staff. In any case, both concepts are
addressing the need for greater flexibility and access to higher education than the
traditional campus experience affords by providing resources and support for learn-
ers beyond the conventional fixed format of classroom attendance and face-to-face
lectures.
Distributed Learning
Distance Education
f2f
elearning
Blended Learning
Fig. 13.1
The relationship of
eLearning to distributed
learning (Mason & Rennie
2006, p xvii)
After the initial orientation meetings to plan the structure, responsibilities, and
timetable for the project partners, staff development workshops were held to assess
the current (base level) status of the pedagogical systems of each of the partners
