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Distance learning
Distance education is a method of teaching in which the students are not required to be physically present at a specific location during the term. Instead, teachers and students communicate by exchanging printed or electronic media, or through technology that allows them to communicate in real time.
Most often, regular mail is used to send written material, videos, audiotapes, and CD-ROMs to the student and to turn in the exercises. E-mail, the Web, and video conferencing over broadband network connections are used as well.
Full time or part-time study is possible, but most students choose part-time study. Research study is possible as well. Often students are required to come to meetings at regional offices on specific weekends, for example to take exams. Distance education is offered at all levels, but is most frequently an option for university-level studies. A form of educational program which is similar to this but which requires some amount of presence during the year is a low-residency program.
Distance education programs are sometimes called correspondence courses, an older term that originated in nineteenth-century vocational education programs that were conducted through postal mail. This term has been largely replaced by distance education, and expanded to encompass more sophisticated technologies. The first subject taught by correspondence was the Pitman Shorthand, a tool of stenography. Primary and secondary education programs were also widely available by correspondence, usually for children living in remote areas.
One of the oldest distance education universities is the University of South Africa, which has been offering DE courses since 1946. The largest distance education university in the UK is the Open University founded 1969. In Germany the FernUniversität in Hagen was founded 1974. All three are now mega universities. In 1999 the European Graduate School went online from both Switzerland and the United States.
There are many private and public, non-profit and for-profit institutions offering courses and degree programs through distance education. Levels of accreditation vary; some institutions offering distance education have received little outside oversight, and some may be fraudulent
