Distance Education in Transition - Master of Distance Education ...

The Multiple (Mass) Media Model
Concepts and Models
This model was developed in the seventies and eighties of the last century. Its characteristic
feature is the regular and more or less integrated use of radio and television together
with printed matter in the form of pre-prepared structured course material, which may or
may not be the main and dominant medium, and the more or less systematic support for
students by means of study centres. It became important because it helped to shape the
structure of many distance teaching universities all over the world. This model was a
great step forward. In fact, it designates a new era in the development of distance
education, namely the second generation of this particular form of academic teaching
and learning.
There is another important feature of this model. It initiated and supported the
movement towards open learning and open universities. These universities are not only
open because of their adoption of new methods and media. There are deeper reasons to
support this new form of learning, namely motives and efforts which have a societal
background. The term "open university" can be interpreted in a multidimensional way.
Van den Boom and Schlusmans (1989, p. 6) showed these dimensions clearly in their
study "Didactics of Open Education - Background, Analysis and Approaches”.
According to them, protagonists of open universities attach to this term the following
expectations:
� University education is to be made less expensive.
� More people are to be enabled to take part in cultural life.
� The overcrowded traditional universities are to be relieved.
� New groups of students are to be formed.
� The further democratisation of society is to be supported by enabling more people
to study while working thus making the world in which they live more transparent
to them and empowering them to act autonomously.
� Lifelong learning, which has been propagated for decades, is to receive better
opportunities for realisation.
� Additional chances and impulses are to be provided for people to gain more
qualifications to enable them to survive in today’s employment world.
Another important motive is not contained in this catalogue, although it played a
significant part in the founding of open universities: opening up access to university for
students without formal entrance qualifications. This has been realised at the British
Open University and the Open Universiteit in the Netherlands, but not in many other
countries due to different academic traditions, learning cultures and societal conditions.
The British Open University has brought this particular model of multiple (mass) media
distance education to perfection. More than 30 open universities all over the world have
been influenced by its outstanding achievements.
The Group Distance Education Model
This model is similar to the third one as radio and television are used permanently as
teaching media, especially for transmitting lectures held by eminent professors. However,
these lectures are as a rule not received by individual students, but rather by groups of
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