Featuring essays by an international array of literature scholars, this volume examines the challenges and opportunities of teaching literature at Open and Virtual Universities in a wide range of national, cultural and linguistic contexts. It presents cutting-edge explorations of seminal issues, including: literature pedagogy and curriculum building; canon and theory debates; the uses of hypertext and other digital tools for literary instruction; the writing and evaluation of educational material; and the teaching of digital literature. These issues are addressed from various critical and theoretical viewpoints, which reflect the contributors' long educational and administrative involvement with open and distance learning (ODL) in a rich diversity of cultural and academic frameworks. As the first scholarly attempt to bring together questions of literature pedagogy and issues in open and distance, online and blended learning, this book is an essential resource for literature instructors and administrators in ODL, e-learning and b-learning programs. It offers techniques enabling scholars in more traditional academic settings to make literature courses more effective and stimulating by using tools developed for distance learning.

There are currently over one million students enrolled in distance learning programs, and that number is likely to triple in the next three years. This new guide will help those students pick the right program with profiles of over 1,000 accredited distance learning schools in the U.S.-- both undergraduate and graduate. Each school profile includes information on: *Popular programs and majors *Pre-requisite courses and degrees *Which admission tests are required *Tuition and financial aid *Addresses, telephone numbers and Web sites *Transfer credits *GPA requirements Contents: I Why Distance Learning? II What Is Distance Education? III How to Select a Program and School IV Admissions V Financing Your Education VI The Corporate Connection VII The Student Perspective VIII The Faculty IX Some Final Thoughts X Distance Learning Survey -- Undergraduate Programs XI Distance Learning Survey -- Graduate Programs XII Indexes

A 1979 study of distance (correspondence, external) education and library related activities of students of the Western Australian Institute of Technology (WAIT), based on a 67 response to 515 questionnaires mailed to external students, and a smaller number responded to by internal students. Few significant differences between external and internal students were revealed, and library differences related to ease of access to libraries. Both internal and external students made no attempt to obtain a very high proportion of additional recommended books. Both groups bought most text books. Academic staff diverged widely on what constituted a satisfactory course from a library viewpoint, and only a small minority of external course writers aimed at identity in the bibliographic content of courses because most could not see how students could identify and locate materials themselves. The study offered little support for the view that external students are particularly disadvantaged in access to study materials. Recommendations are provided for: (1) course writers; (2) the provision of library services by WAIT. (ALB).

Educators today teach in a range of formats, from traditional face-to-face courses to Web-assisted courses in physical classrooms to entirely online courses in which the teacher and students never meet in person. The pressure to integrate teaching with information technology is strong, and more and more educational institutions are offering blended courses and distance-education learning options. The essays in this collection illuminate the realities of teaching language and literature courses online. Contributors present snapshots of their experiences with online pedagogies, realizing that, just as this year's technology writes over last year's, the approaches and teaching tools they have pioneered will also be obscured by future innovations. At the same time, the volume describes models that first-time teachers of online courses will find useful and provides extensive insights into online education for those who are experienced in teaching blended and open-source courses. The volume begins with an overview of online education in the fields of literature and language and then offers case studies of particular technologies used in specific courses. Subjects extend from Old English and ancient world literature to Shakespeare and modern poetry, and languages include Aymara, Chinese, English as a second language, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. Contributors describe using multimedia Web sites, cyberplay and gaming, bulletin boards, chat rooms, blogs, wikis, natural language processing, podcasting, course management systems, annotated electronic editions, text-analysis tools, and open-source applications. They show that online pedagogies often have surprising capabilities--such as transforming a Web-based environment into an intimate social community spanning institutions and oceans, saving endangered languages, and rescuing isolated communities and individuals who have no other educational lifeline.

Distance Learning in America is characterised by an enormous variety of institutions, programs, media and pedagogical methods. This book attempts to draw together an overall picture of the rapid growth and achievements in the field of American distance education and the problems and issues that confront it. The book is aimed primarily at the university and college teacher and student, and particularly at graduate students in adult and distance education and other related fields. It aims to provide a cross-sectional view of the administrative and policy issues, the questions about learners and instruction, the problems of curriculum and course design and the new conceptual and theoretical concerns of some of the country's foremost practitioners and thinkers.