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 Terms

Distance 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 management

Distance 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 system

Distance 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.