Open Content and Open Educational Resources: Enabling universal education

The role of distance education is shifting. Traditionally distance education was limited in the number of people served because of production, reproduction, and distribution costs. Today, while it still costs the university time and money to produce a course, technology has made it such that reprodu...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Tom Caswell, Shelley Henson, Marion Jensen, David Wiley
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Athabasca University Press 2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/192a356b8ef24ddaac9a2818ae73cfe0
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
Descripción
Sumario:The role of distance education is shifting. Traditionally distance education was limited in the number of people served because of production, reproduction, and distribution costs. Today, while it still costs the university time and money to produce a course, technology has made it such that reproduction costs are almost non-existent. This shift has significant implications, and allows distance educators to play an important role in the fulfillment of the promise of the right to universal education. At little or no cost, universities can make their content available to millions. This content has the potential to substantially improve the quality of life of learners around the world. New distance education technologies, such as OpenCourseWares, act as enablers to achieving the universal right to education. These technologies, and the associated changes in the cost of providing access to education, change distance education's role from one of classroom alternative to one of social transformer.