ABSTRACT
The use of distance-teaching methods for university-level education is a practice that goes back over one hundred years. In Britain, its origins can partly be traced to the historical distinction between teaching and accreditation which was one of the key features of the Oxford and Cambridge system—the colleges taught, the University examined. Everyman’s University in Israel and the Free University of Iran were established to meet very pressing needs for in-service training and general adult education, as well as for degree-level studies. The British Open University, in its undergraduate programme, has 124 courses available with few restrictions on which particular combination of courses students may choose to make up their degree programme. By analysing distance-education projects into these four subsystems–courses, students, regulatory and logistical—it is possible to gain valuable insights into the criteria both for adopting distance-learning solutions and for deciding on the particular form a given solution might take.
