The Open University in Great Britain has been experimenting on a limited scale with the use of telephone conferencing to reach disadvantaged and handicapped students. (JY)

An overview of the Open Universitie's graduate courses and the potential for growth within the program. (HB)

After initial hostility and skepticism to Open Universities, the critical response became more favorable. From 1971 onwards there was a tremendous amount of writing about the Open University, not only in British journals and newspapers but also abroad. This bibliography incorporates over 130 entries dealing with the Open University in Great…

This report discusses briefly the concept of open education and its application at the college and university level. Efforts already underway in the United States and abroad are covered in two appendices. Four models of open universities are described in some detail. One model is based on the extension of community college activities. The second…

This study offers a preliminary description of the faculty members at the University of Minnesota who have worked with University Without Walls (UWW) students outside of the conventional classroom setting. The American Council on Education Faculty questionnaire was sent to 141 university faculty members; 53 percent responded. Findings indicated:…

An evaluation of the student-centered learning program at Great Britain's Open University is presented. (HB)

The Open University set out ten years ago to solve the problem of dropouts in external degree programs. The importance of its success for itself and other institutions is discussed, although there is caution due to the lack of unanimity in terminology in dropout research, and the danger of using dropouts to compare institutions. (MSE)

Observing that distance teaching so far conducted at Britain's Open University is based on an authoritarian model with teacher-developed multimedia programed courses, the author proposes a new approach to such correspondence-type courses in which a framework is provided for students to organize their own learning using their own methods. (JT)

The activities of Quebec's Tele-Universite are described and compared with those of Britain's Open University from which it differs in emphasis on cooparation with other organizations and on regional study groups. Now one of the ten units of the University of Quebec, it offers continuing education programs for teachers and an adult education…

Reports a 1974 survey of the 12,800 students taking courses in Britain's Open University to determine viewing and listening figures for each course and to compare the figures for different transmission times and the different faculties (disciplines). The average student watched about two-thirds of the TV and heard about half of the radio programs…

Author believes that if the Open University continues to be successful, it can hardly fail to exert a powerful influence on the future development of higher education in Great Britain. (Author/HB)

An interview with Walter Perry, Vice-Chancellor of The Open University, in which he discusses his educational philosophy. (HB)

Care must be taken to select technology appropriate to the teaching task in distance education. Five principles of media selection are: increasing student-system interaction, matching the medium with the materials, reducing duplication, choosing the most direct channel, and developing user-friendly systems. Interactiveness and efficiency of…