Glossary

We are providing a glossary of Distance Education Terms.If you want a glossary of terms about the technologies used in distance education first connect to the International Teleconferencing Association site: Glossaries of Technological Terms (URL: http://www.itca.org/resources_ITCA/framesettest.html)Besides providing its own glossary, ITA provides hotlinks to other technology related glossaries.Another good technology glossary is: Glossaries of Learning Technologies Terms ( URL: http://olt-bta.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/learning/glosse.html). This site provides links to resources in both English and French.Glossary of Distance Education TermsDistance education:Teaching and learning in which learning normally occurs in a different place from teaching.Distance learning:Term often used as synonymous with distance education, not strictly correctly since distance education includes teaching as well as learning.Distance education courses:Structured programs of instruction for learners in a different place from the teacher, having learning objectives, one or more teachers, a medium of communication, and subject matter.Distance education system:All the component processes that result in distance education, including learning, teaching, communication, design, and managementDistance education Institution:College, university or school system organized exclusively for distance education.Distance education Unit:A special unit dedicated to distance learning within a conventional college, university or school systemDistance education Consortium:Two or more distance education institutions or units who share in designing distance education courses, teaching them, or both.Distance education Program:Distance education provided by same staff of a conventional college, university, school system, or training department whose primary responsibilities are classroom instruction.Course design:Setting learning objectives, chosing media applications, planning evaluation and preparing instructional strategies in advance of student recruitment.Course team:Group of specialists in content, instructional design, learning and technologies convened to produce distance education course.Technology:Mechanisms for distributing messages, including postal systems, radio and television broadcasting companies, telephone, satellite and computer networks.Media:Messages that are distributed through the technologies, principally text in books, study guides and computer networks; sound in audio-tapes and broadcast: pictures in video-tapes and broadcast; text, sound and/or pictures in a teleconference.Interaction:Exchange of information, ideas, opinions between and among learners and teachers, usually occurring through technology with the aim of facilitating learning.Instructors (also tutors):Specialists in learning who interact through technology with students as they learn content, usually designed by course team, though quite often by the instructors themselves.Counselors:Specialists in learning who help individual students with academic or personal problems that interfere with learning.Assignments:Work produced by students and used by instructors for purposes of interaction and also evaluation.Economies of scale:Effect on unit cost of producing large quantities. In distance education the larger the number of users of a course or the larger the number of users of the system, the lower the cost for each person