INTRODUCTION
Distance education is the educational process in which the instructor and learner are physically separated, and interaction between them is conducted through technology. Distance education is neither a recent nor a new phenomenon. It has a long tradition. However, the development and adoption of sophisticated communication technologies often creates that impression (McGorry, 2003).
Distance education has a strong background in Turkey and is recognized as a method of learning for all levels of education except primary (years one to five). On the other hand, distance education has been centralized and controlled by the state. The Ministry of National Education (MONE) is responsible for all distance learning activities from kindergarten to the secondary level. The Higher Education Council is responsible for distance learning implementation in universities.
Recent statistics show that the demand for post-secondary education in Turkey is rising. Admission to higher education is centralized and based on nationwide examinations administered by the Student Selection and Placement Centre every year. Every year, approximately 1.5 million students enter the examination and nearly 420,000 of these students are placed into a higher education program (including the Open Education Faculty, OEF). In fact, in the 2001 to 2002 education year, the number of students at the secondary school level reached 2.24 million. This shows that the demand for postsecondary education will rise in the near future. However, it is not possible to double the capacity of the universities in a traditional sense. Therefore, it is expected that distance education will be thought of as one of the solutions to redress the balance. However, awareness about distance education based on the Internet is limited.
On the other hand, distance learning is being used increasingly as a mechanism for professional development. There is a growing private sector offering special IT courses via the Internet. Other courses are related to project and time management, language teaching, and as preparation for the university entrance examination.
ministry of national education
MONE has been providing distance education since 1992. The Open High School started with 45,000 students (Yazici, Altas, & Demiray, 2001). In 2002, the total number of students reached 552,760. The aim of the Open High School is to provide an opportunity to people who for various reasons could not complete high school. The curriculum and diploma degree are the same as for conventional high school students. Half of the students are older than 25. More than half of them are working. The Open Vocational and Technical School was established in 1995. The school has both distance and face-to-face education modes. Face to-face instruction occurs in the local vocational schools, mainly for laboratory (hands-on) activities.
In 1997, Turkey began to implement 8-year compulsory education through parliamentary approval of a law for basic education. Before 1997, compulsory basic education was limited to five years. Parallel with the new structure, the Open Primary School for grades six through eight of basic education has been established to give a chance to students to continue their secondary education. Open primary schools are for people older than 15 who have already completed 5 years of former primary school, the first part of basic education.
Delivery technologies are mainly printed materials,television programs, radio programs, teletext, VCDs, audiocassettes, and videocassettes. TRT (Turkish Radio Television) is the institution responsible for broadcasting the educational programs. MONE has developed a Web site mainly for announcements and information. The Directorate of Educational Technologies of MONE is responsible for the educational materials. Examinations are held in conventional ways in each province. The preparation of the tests and their evaluation are carried out by a central group in the Directorate of Educational Technologies.
HIGHER EDUCATION
In accordance with the Higher Education Act issued in 1981, Anatolian University was authorized to provide distance education in Turkey on a national scale. In 1982, the Open Education Faculty in Anatolian University started to admit students (Ozkul, 2001). Legally, there is no difference between the open education and conventional diploma degrees. There are no age restrictions. The Open Education Faculty enrolls nearly 300,000 students annually. The average age of the students is 24. About 70% of the students have a full-time job and 8% are part-time workers.
The degrees offered by the Open Education Faculty are in management, economics, preschool teaching, English teaching, home economics, public relations, secretarial studies, banking and insurance, overseas trade, health administration, tourism and hotel management, accounting, religious studies, agriculture, veterinary science, nursing, elementary school teaching to complete the BA degree, and information management with the cooperation of Microsoft.
Preparation of all teaching materials including television programs is an in-house activity. The interaction is provided by the OEF offices in the provinces by Internet (very limited) and mail services.
Middle East Technical University has two organizations offering distance learning. The Continuing Education Centre (SEM) is the first organization in Turkey to implement distance education by using the Internet. The name of the educational platform is IDE-A (Internet-Based Education-Asynchronous). The centre offers a 9-month certificate program on information technology. The total number of students over the past years has been 550. The instructors are from the Department of Computer Engineering, where the teaching materials are prepared. The materials are delivered via the Internet. Every two months, the students come to the university for face-to-face instruction and for examinations. The main interaction is online discussions or chat rooms via the Internet. The other organization is the Informatics Institute, opened by the Council of Ministries. Informatics Online is an online graduate program, accepted by the Higher Education Council as a regular master-of-science program (without thesis) like other graduate programs. The program is conducted mainly in an asynchronous manner. Collaboration among students and instructors is carried out by using both asynchronous (e.g., e-mail, forums/discussion lists) and synchronous (e.g., chat, whiteboard) tools. Web-based material enriched with interactive animations, simulations, and exercises is the basic course content.
Sakarya University has started an online 2-years pre-BA program on computer programming, information management, and management. The model is Internet-based and asynchronous. They also offer on-campus distance education courses such as mechanics, history, chip design, and folkloric studies. Sakarya University has an agreement with IBM Lotus, which is providing the Internet platform called LearningSpace.
Istanbul Technical University offers online, on-campus calculus and computer courses by the Centre of Virtual Education under the Informatics Institute. Firat University in Elazig broadcasts educational programs by Firat RTV. Ahmet Yesevi University, a joint organization between the Republic of Turkey and Kazakhstan, was founded in 1992 in Turkistan. The diploma degrees are equivalent to those of the other universities in Turkey and Kazakhstan. Ahmet Yesevi University offers distance learning via the Internet. The language of instruction is Turkish. The courses are management (graduate and postgraduate), management information systems (graduate and postgraduate), computer engineering (graduate and postgraduate), and computer programming (two years, pre-BSc). Bilkent University has a communications office in New York City, equipped with interactive videoconferencing capabilities. A number of courses are delivered through this office via satellite connection. The courses that are offered live from New York via satellite are economics and public administration. Istanbul Bilgi University is offering an e-MBA, an online master’s program in business administration.
THE PRIVATE INITIATIVES
There are numerous companies offering online courses, like Cisco Networking, Microsoft, and Oracle. There is a high demand for IT courses since IT is known as a growing sector in Turkey. In addition, there are a few companies working as content providers. One of them is Enocta, which is a joint company of Ernst & Young, Probil and Avez, and AB Learning. GANTEK inAnkara is another content- and learning-management system provider that has an agreement with Middle East Technical University-Preparatory School. The program is for teaching English for the Public Personnel English Examination. Meteksan-Mobilsoft in Ankara has developed an online Turkish-teaching environment with TOMER of Ankara University. The aim of the program is to teach Turkish to foreigners.
Another development that Siemens Business Service (SB S) in Turkey has undertaken is the e-learning project for the European Union (EU) member countries for use in preuniversity education. The project, called I-Class, is the biggest project granted by the EU to a Turkish software company. The I-Class project will develop an intelligent cognitive-based open learning system and environment, adapted to individual learners’ needs, and ensure their take-up in the education sector at a European level. The project takes into account not only advanced technology but also educational, psychological, and cognitive aspects to ensure full integration of current research and best practices (Turker & Eti, 2004).
Banking is the promising sector of distance education for in-service training. Central Bank has been organizing programs since 1999. They have programs on English teaching and IT. They use Netg ECDL distance learning programs. Turkish Bank is another bank that uses distance education for their employees. Enocta is a consulting firm. In addition, Halk Bank, Yapi ve Kredi Bank, Ko^Bank, Akbank, and Ziraat Bank have e-learning initiatives for their personnel.
perceived characteristics of distance education
Research into the diffusion of IT innovations is important because it reveals how implementation barriers to technology transfer can block advanced information systems from successful implementations (Baskerville & Priens-Heje, 2001).
In this study, 100 students were interviewed. The results showed the following:
• Sixty percent of the undergraduate students have never considered a distance education program.
• Thirty-six percent stated that they would consider registering at a university for distance education if
1. there was no chance to go to a conventional university for various reasons
2. the university is well known, distinguished, and services are good
3. there is face-to-face interaction between the instructor and student from time to time
4. it provides an interactive Internet network
The results indicated that students do not consider distance education as an alternative educational system to the conventional ones. Some of them responded that they would opt for distance education if they have no other options. They stated that they prefer blended learning from a distinguished university. However, when they were asked if they would choose distance education for a master’s degree, they were more positive. Forty-seven percent of the students responded “yes” to the question, “Would you consider distance education for your master’s degree?” They prefer well-known institutions with Internet connections. The relative advantage is while they are working, it is possible to continue their education. Usually the expectation from graduate students is to find a job and start to earn a living. However, this is not true for undergraduate students.
When they were asked whether they know people who are in distance education programs, a fairly high 31% of them said “yes.” It means that one third of the people have an acquaintance undertaking a distance education course. However, most of them are in the Open Education Faculty of Anatolian University, a few are from the Open High School, and one or two are in Sakarya, Middle East Technical, or Bilgi Universities. Although distance education is widely observable, many people perceive distance education as the last opportunity for education.
The responses to the question, “According to you what is the status of distance education in Turkey?” could be categorized as follows:
• not developed, not sufficient, not common, not successful, not of good quality, not recognized, and not well established
• not well understood, not well known, and awareness is low
• The infrastructure is not developed and the Internet is not used.
• Job opportunities are not the same as for conventional education.
In Turkey, knowledge about distance learning is limited to the Open Education Faculty and the credit given to the concept is low. Although there is no limit for student numbers, applications from students are low and distance education is seen as an opportunity for people who did not benefit form the conventional educational system. Therefore, it is not an alternative to the conventional educational system. Students prefer face-to-face instruction to some extent. On the other hand, conventional university life is not only for gaining knowledge. There are so many cultural and social activities. Indeed, to belong to a social group and to have friends are more important than studying when one is aged 18 to 25.
The results of a study conducted by Katz (2002) indicated that psychological attitudes held by students differentially facilitate the efficient use of distance learning approaches. Satisfaction with learning, the level of control of the learning process, and study motivation for distance learning are all positively related to the students’ preferences for structured distance learning, Opinions of the specialists who are currently involved in offering distance education were gathered by using another interview protocol. It is interesting to note that their opinions are almost parallel to the opinions of students. According to MONE and Anatolian University specialists, distance education gives a chance to people who have no other choices. In addition, specialists from universities think that it is not an alternative, but a supplement to conventional universities. On the other hand, the idea of blended learning is receiving more attention. For institutions or companies, distance education seems to be the first option in service training. Distance education is a time-and money-saving method of education.
The specialists indicated that distance education is not compatible with the existing university education system. It is not consistent with past experiences, values, and norms. On the other hand, they mentioned that technological developments, especially on the Internet, may cause a jump in the adoption of distance education. Also, employers have positive attitudes toward staff that opt for a distance education master’s program from distinguished universities since there is no negative impact on work compared to a conventional master’s study.
CONCLUSION
Demand for education is growing rapidly in Turkey. However, the current educational system cannot respond effectively to this demand. Therefore, distance education could be a solution to this problem if the following barriers will be taken into consideration: the regulations and accreditations, technological infrastructure, shortage of experts in distance education, and perceived characteristics of distance education.
Distance education needs flexible and dynamic regulations since the conventional meaning of distance education has changed to e-learning. Thus, institutions are thrust into being confronted with a rapidly changing social as well as economic scenario; and if they are to survive, they must evolve. Crucial to this successful evolution is the formulation of new assessment strategies for distance education (Stallings, 2002). In line with the new assessment strategies, there is a need for reliable licensing and accreditation bodies (Birnbaum, 2002)
According to a household survey conducted by Information Technologies and Electronic Institute (BILTEN) of Turkey’s Scientific and Technical Research Council (TUBITAK) in 2000, 12.5% of homes had a computer. Internet connectivity at home was around 7%. The results showed that the increase in Internet connectivity came significantly from the higher middle and highest income groups.
The telecommunication sector has been in the process of privatization. Private companies are expected to expand the market through increasing quality of service and decreasing prices. It is anticipated that new telecom operators will also be offering new services in order to increase their market share. Educational services are a good candidate for them to offer to their customers.
There are numerous studies evaluating the quality of distance education programs.
In one study (Belanger, & Jordan, 2000), the criteria for evaluating quality in distance education, mentioned in order of priority, are the following.
1. functions technically without problems for all users
2. has clear and explicit pedagogical design principles appropriate to learner types, needs, and contexts
3. subject content is state of the art and maintained to be up to date
4. has a high level of interactivity
In order to meet these criteria, there are two areas in need of improvement:
1. telecommunication infrastructure, and
2. instructional strategies.
As a result, distance education seems to be an option for people who want to get a degree for their careers. It has been primarily limited to books and television programs; although other delivery techniques are in use, most of the university instructors and administrators do not regard distance education as a valid educational system. On the other hand, people’s awareness is limited regarding online learning and discussions around it are still emerging.
key terms
Blended Learning: An instructional model that combines two or more instructional models.
Compatibility: The degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with the existing values, past experiences, and needs of potential adopters.
Diffusion: The process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system.
Distance Education: A type of formal education in which the majority of the instruction, which is transmitted through technology, occurs when the student and instructor are not in the same place.
E-Learning: Refers to learning that is electronic or computer based, but the term is often used to refer to learning via the Internet.
Innovation: An idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption.
Relative Advantage: The degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than the idea it supersedes.
