Distance Higher Education Programmes in a Digital Era: Good Practice Guide

This guide sets out to clarify the key distinctions between distance and contact education provision in South Africa, and to provide guidelines on how general programme accreditation requirements need to be interpreted for a distance education context and the wide variations thereof, including the effective integration of supporting information and communication technologies (ICTs). The guide is divided into eight sections as follows: introduction and background; a conceptual framework for distance education in a digital era; curriculum design, development and delivery for distance education in a digital era; teaching and learning in distance education in a digital era; assessment in distance education in a digital era; partnerships and collaborations for distance education provision in a digital era; managing distance education provision in a digital era; and concluding remarks. These sections include examples of good practice in distance education. There is also a glossary of terms that are useful in the discussion of distance education provision, and a distance education bibliography.