Briefly outlines the early history of distance education programs in the 1960s, emphasizing the success of the Open University in the United Kingdom. Discusses 10 individual models of virtual universities that are international in scope. (JKP)

Describes the pattern of student demand, progress and withdrawal over the first four years of the Open University in Great Britain. Appendix contains the problems inherent in comparing the Open University with other institutions. (Editor/PG)

The Regents External Degree is a New York State program offering a college degree to individuals, whether by earned college credit or knowledge acquired in other experience areas. The external degree and the College Proficiency Examinations are administered by the University of the State of New York, which has no campus or courses but accepts…

An Open University tutor in the arts describes the experience of conducting conference call tutorials for groups of up to eight students taking a correspondence-type course. Specific techniques are discussed: initial approach designed to make individual students at ease, ways of getting all students involved in dialogue, etc. (JT)

An examination of Britain's Open University in light of its success which proves some past educational assumptions false and poses challenges for future educational development. (HB)

A descriptive paper which attempts to give a brief overview of the nature of the course materials used in Science teaching at the Open University and the procedures adopted for assessment and evaluation. (Author)

A report from Britain's Open University that teaches students in their spare time through a mixture of television and radio, correspondence courses, summer schools and evening classes. (Editor/PG)

A study in which British open university students were asked how they came to be studying the social sciences foundation course is reported. The students' approaches to learning are analyzed and their orientations (vocational, academic, personal, and social) are compared to those of students in a conventional university. (MSE)

A course on distance study for part-time teachers for both initial and retraining is described and evaluated. It emphasizes the preparation, exchange, and study of written materials as well as the conventional broadcast and face-to-face delivery. (MSE)

It is shown that Open University students are psychologically able to sustain an independent (i.e., student-centered) program of learning and that the Open University degree structure is sufficiently flexible to incorporate truly independent study into its structure in the form of a project credit. (Author/LBH)

Presents the steps necessary for successful innovation, with emphasis on financing, selling the change to faculty, and evaluating the results. (Editor)

Interest in the establishment of external degree programs and programs for off-campus higher education has been accelerated throughout the country by the recognition of the need for new approaches to the extension and improvement of higher education opportunity and for ways of reducing the cost of education to both students and taxpayers. State…

Describes an experimental correspondence course in Britain's Open University, an upper division biology course in ecology. The course differs from most others in that individual research study projects are substituted for the study center tutorials that supplement correspondence work in most other courses. (JT)

A staff tutor in mathematics in Britain's Open University illustrates three types of communication breakdown due to language factors that occur between the team developing mathematics correspondence courses and their students. He concludes that the traditional teaching language of university mathematics is not entirely suitable in the Open…